Kena Mestari, Department of English, College of Southern Idaho. English 175: Literature and Ideas. Mrs. Miller. May 14, 2024.
Nature’s Child: Isolation’s Mind-Shaping Ability A child’s psyche alters when the only form of love they receive is from the tall marsh grass enclosing them from the real world. At six years old, Catherine Danielle Clark, ‘Kya’, was abandoned by her mother shortly after her siblings followed. Kya was ten when the last family member of hers left: her abusive father. He was the reason everyone else ran away too– leaving the young girl to survive independently in the quiet desolate Marsh. Psychoanalytical Theory deals with psychological development throughout…show more content… This powerful moment in the book is where the reader can fully understand how tired Kya was of being abandoned and how it altered her psychological development. She had been left behind starting at the ripe age of six and it never ended for her, even as she ventured into adulthood. She had to learn to live without a stable connection because it became her norm. The only person she could trust was herself, so she purposely isolated herself and tried to best not to go into town as much as she could. Her lack of trust due to her insecure attachment resulted in Kya living most of her life alone in her shack on the Marsh where she could be alone with herself– the only person she could rely on– and the natural world. Kya had nobody to rely on other than herself, but sometimes people need comfort from places other than themselves; subconsciously she knew she needed something stable in her life that she could rely on, and that something was with her for her whole life: the Marsh. Because she had major difficulties forming and keeping relationships due to her attachment issues caused by continuous abandonment, the Marsh was there for…show more content… Most of what she knew, she’d learned from the wild. Nature nurtured, tutored, and protected her when no one else would (Owens, 2018, p.363). Through her childhood, she had a deep connection with the Marsh, and through the novel, it is apparent that she considers the Marsh the family she never had. She unconsciously found family in the natural world around her and it became a part of her. Her profound understanding of the Marsh grew as she matured and spent years of isolation between her and the natural world that raised her. Her connection even went as far as providing her a career when she wrote several books expressing her understanding and appreciation for all of the finest elements in the Marsh. It was all she had known and needed– the only stable connection she had throughout her entire life. Isolation can negatively impact a person’s psychological development, and Delia Owens fantastically portrays this in the novel. Kya was forced to take on a subconscious defense mechanism–denial– that caused her to run away from problems so she did not have to endure even more
