53 pages • 1-hour read
Heartwood
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Symbols & Motifs
The Woods
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of mental illness.
The woods are a complex symbol, representing both the therapeutic effect of spending time in nature as well as the dangers that lurk there, developing the theme of Nature as Both Sanctuary and Adversary. The author introduces the woods surrounding the Appalachian Trail through Valerie’s hike, which is framed as a feat of strength and opportunity for mid-life reflection. For Valerie, the woods are therefore initially a space of refuge. At the same time, Bev’s point of view establishes that the woods surrounding the Maine portion of the Appalachian Trail are particularly dense and foreboding. They are difficult to traverse, and people get lost in them regularly.
Both of these depictions hold true for Valerie as she completes her hike. The woods do indeed provide opportunities for solitude and reflection for her: On her hike, she reflects on the trauma of nursing during the pandemic, her marriage, and her life writ large. She finds the clarity she was seeking and vows to make key changes after she completes her hike. At the same time, following her kidnapping, Valerie is lost and nearly starves. Ultimately, Valerie categorizes her hike as life-changing and finds herself at peace, but she does admit that for her, the wilderness was both a sanctuary and an adversary.
Valerie’s Backpack
In novels that depict wilderness adventuring, the backpack often becomes a symbol of The Deep Roots of Resilience and Survival, and Heartwood is no exception. Because Valerie has to carry this pack on each step of her journey, she had to carefully evaluate which items were truly necessary and which would become dead weight. Selecting those necessary items became a large part of the preparatory work for her journey, and Daniel’s theft of the pack marks one of the most perilous moments in her story.
However, Daniel returned her pack to her in a testament to her kindness: Daniel, even in an acute mental crisis, realized that Valerie did not deserve to be harmed. Getting her backpack back symbolizes Valerie’s continued strength. Again carrying her backpack, Valerie continues to make her way, hoping to be rescued. Ultimately, Bev finds her pack and uses its location to home in on a new search area in which she is able to locate Valerie, the pack literally saving Valerie’s life.
Lena’s Parenting Journal
Lena kept a parenting journal while she was raising Christine. Lena is highly intelligent and scientifically minded, and the journal reflects those qualities. Rather than chronicling the time she spent with her daughter or the nature of their growing relationship, Lena stuck to scientific observation. She recorded developmental milestones and data and noted, with cold objectivity, her daughter’s traits, characteristics, and behaviors. She struggled to form an affective bond with Christine but felt that she made up for that area of her parenting obligation by keenly observing her daughter at all times: No one could accuse her of not knowing what Christine was doing. As such, the journal symbolizes Lena’s fractured relationship with Christine and helps the author to explore The Complexity of Mother-Daughter Bonds.
Lena ultimately does come to understand that Christine needed her mother’s love and resented being turned into an object for study. While she and Christine do not repair their relationship, she does form a bond with Christine’s son, Austin. Although Austin shares her own love of science, their bond involves more than shared interests; Lena also does her best to let Austin know that she cares about him and to be a loving, supportive presence in his life, underscoring that she has learned that meaningful relationships require emotional involvement.
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