Pax

The author explores the theme of Escape from Captivity into the Wild more deeply through the parallels to Sinbad, in which Sinbad is trying to escape from the bird, Roc. Peter mirrors this by wanting to leave Vola’s house and go off on his own, as well as Pax leaving Peter’s protection eventually to go into the wild.

In Pax the wild is more than just the land, but the untamable feelings of human beings. Peter is afraid to own his wildness because he’s uncomfortable expressing anger. He remembers “His seven year old fury. A wildness he couldn’t control. The exhilarating fright of that wildness” (217). He then shatters a globe that once belonged to his mother “his mother’s blue gazing globe, batted off its pedestal into a million shards.” His mother begs him not to be like his father, to tame his temper. He remembers “her bloodied fingers, picking the blue glass daggers from her white roses. His shame as he watched her drive away” (217). The author implies that this moment was the last time Peter ever saw her.

Peter tries to stuff his anger down with Vola, but she says “I don’t think that’s going to work out. You’re human and humans feel anger” (218). Peter says it’s too dangerous. Vola throws her head back and laughs “We all own a beast called anger. It can serve us: many good things come from anger at bad things” (218). The message in Pax is to be fully human, to own our anger or wildness. Peter is able to own his anger “at bad things” when he speaks defiantly to the war-sick men before rescuing Pax from the coyote.