Woods Runner

“And he pictured his life, how he lived in two worlds. Sometimes Samuel thought that a line dividing those worlds went right through their cabin.” 

This is an early indication of the division between wilderness and civilization that will carry through the rest of the novel. Samuel sees these as two entirely different worlds; that he’s positioned the dividing line inside of his own home indicates how strongly he feels that he and his parents are of two different worlds.

“When he first started going into the forest, Samuel went only a short distance. That first time, though he was well armed with his light Pennsylvania rifle and dry powder and a good knife, he instantly felt that he was in an alien world. As a human he did not belong. It was a world that did not care about man any more than it cared about dirt, or grass, or leaves.”

Samuel speaks of the woods with a type of reverence, attributing it an otherworldliness that’s notable, considering his knowledge of and comfort within the woods. Saying that the forest “did not care about men” further divides “civilization” from nature as a creation that comes from man forcing his will onto the natural world to make it more comfortable for himself.

“Once, sitting by the fire, a distant relative, a shirttail uncle who was a very old man of nearly fifty named Ishmael, had looked over his shoulder as if expecting to see monsters and said, “Nothing dies of old age in the forest. Not bugs, not deer, not bear nor panthers nor man. Live long enough, be slow enough, get old enough and something eats you. Everything kills.” 

Here, Samuel reveals his initial thoughts about death and violence. In this first chapter, the woods are described as a place of death, a constant tension between predator and prey, compared to the reasoned civilization of man. As this impression will be inverted over the course of the novel, Ishmael’s words set up the complexity of the novel’s perspective on death and violence.