LIMINAL SUBJECT ON LIMINAL SPACE: THE REDEMPTIVE JOURNEY IN VALLÉE’S WILD
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https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7752666%20Keywords:
Jean-Marc Vallée,, Wild,, liminality,, Arnold van Gennep, Victor Turner, Jean-Marc Vallée, Wild, liminality, Arnold van Gennep, Victor TurnerAbstract
Jean-Marc Vallée’s film Wild (2014), adopted from Cheryl Strayed’s memoir From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail (2012), portrays the real-life story of Cheryl Strayed’s solo hike experience in the Pacific Crest Trail, abbreviated as PCT. The plot of Wild is adapted from a real-life story that takes place on a real long-distance hiking trail that reaches from the United States/ Mexico border to the United States/ Canada border. Reminiscent of the mythical wilderness journeys and road narratives in American culture and literature, Wild presents Strayed’s journey blending the difficulties and gifts of the journey in nature. From the very beginning of the film, as it is presented mainly in the flashbacks or Strayed’s memories that accompany her on her trail in the wild, before this journey, Strayed is a grieving and traumatized woman unable to overcome especially the death of her mother. Towards the end of the film, this journey in nature enables her to heal her wounds, resolve her traumas, find her true self, and be ready to become a part of the culture. From this perspective, the hiking experience of the main character resembles an initiation ritual maintaining change for the ritual subject. This article, using a significant sociological survey on the relation between ritual and liminality provided by Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner, examines the redemptive change of limen personae, Cheryl Strayed, journeying on a limen space, the wild.
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