The Canyon's Edge

While Nora courageously battles physical hardships, her pivotal experience in the cave catalyzes positive emotional changes, including an increase in confidence, that help her later face even more extreme challenges in her struggle to survive. The need to find her father and escape the canyon grows more urgent. Bowling’s allusions to Beatles songs mirror Nora’s emotional journey from “Before” to “After” and offer the promise of hope, while biblical allusions characterize Nora’s search for meaning.

The cave scene following the scorpion sting is terrifying and suspenseful. In addition, it represents Nora’s psychologically transformative though traumatic situation. The imagery of the raging thunderstorm; the flashes of lightning revealing terrors in the cave, like the “snake” and dark streaks of blood left by Nora’s hands; and her certainty that the menacing, insect-like Beast is climbing up the wall create a horror-movie atmosphere. “Two Claws” visually represents Nora’s feelings of fear and panic via the short and choppy lines, unevenly spaced words, elevated grounding verbs, and line of curved text that mimics the Beast’s claws curling over the cave mouth. Similarly, Nora’s use of enjambment in “Things I Don’t Tell” speeds up her description of the Beast, creating tension and channeling her terror. The final line’s wide spaces between words slow reading and emphasize Nora’s horror at being unable to wake up.

The scorpion venom affects Nora physically, causing symptoms of burning, pain, swelling, and accelerated heart rate, while the venom breaches the defenses of Nora’s mental wall. Although this allows Nora’s nightmare to surface and threaten her again, it also allows her to access positive and empowering memories. Her hallucinations help her feel again, things both good and bad that she has kept repressed in her desire to escape pain. This marks a transitional moment in the novel for Nora, emphasizing the theme of Healing From Trauma. When she awakens, Nora has new confidence, saying, “I beat the beast back / and I vanquished the venom / and I thwarted the thirst, / and I’m still here” (188).

Nora remembers her fearless, loving mother and believes that Mom comes to comfort her and protect her from the Beast. Mom’s presence reflects the healing power of love. While Nora can’t yet rewrite her nightmare of the Beast, as Mary urges her, Nora does rewrite some of her sadness in her “Beatles Dream.” Nora asks Mom to sing “Let It Be,” a comforting song that refers to wisdom and answers in “times of trouble,” instead of “Golden Slumbers,” which references “a way to get back home” or return to the past—something Nora can’t do. In her dream, Nora also changes “Yesterday,” a sad song about the past that makes her father cry, to “Hey Jude,” a more positive song about making things better rather than dwelling in sadness. Nora then envisions her family in a happy place, listening to the comforting “Here Comes the Sun,” which is about the sun emerging after a cold winter and contains the assurance that “it’s alright.” The allusions to various Beatles songs, including those that represent both Dad and Nora’s relationships to her mother—“In My Life” and “Blackbird,” respectively—reflect Nora’s journey from the happiness and safety of their unified family, through the pain of loss, and into a hopeful future. “Blackbird” reflects Mom’s loving faith in Nora’s inner strength and foreshadows Nora overcoming her emotional trauma and thriving, which connects strongly to the theme of Finding the Courage to Live.

By remembering family memories, including the sad memory of Mom’s funeral, Nora begins to confront difficult thoughts and feelings. She considers how her unwillingness to talk about the tragedy and her anger and resentment destroyed her friendship with Danielle.

Nora continues to show her courage and perseverance in the face of extreme physical hardship as the theme of The Keys to Survival takes a more inward turn. She embraces a newfound confidence after successfully battling the Beast and takes initiative and responsibility for finding Dad, understanding that “[i]t will have to be [her] / who finds him” (192). She’s justifiably proud when she free-soloes the rest of the dangerous canyon wall despite her injuries. Nora endures countless painful wounds and the ravages of dehydration, including weakness, lightheadedness, and fatigue, and she shows her mental stoicism when she says, “I want to cry, but don’t” (223). Nora willingly sacrifices her well-being to find Dad, knowing their survival window is closing.

Nora still searches for meaning, however, and is plagued by doubt. She fatalistically entertains more “what if” questions about Dad and desperately hopes for someone to appear and save them or even for a bush to burst into flame. Nora’s reference to a burning bush is a biblical allusion to Exodus 3:1-17, in which God speaks to Moses from a burning bush, telling Moses that He will save the Israelites from slavery. The burning bush is a divine manifestation and is typically interpreted as showing God’s protection, charity, and guidance. Nora’s reference reveals that she still wishes to see some indication of a divine plan behind everything that has happened to her, evidence that God exists. This image of the burning bush foreshadows the novel’s fiery denouement. In addition, Nora alludes ironically to Jesus in “Walking on Water” as she crosses the dry desert. She’s dehydrated but knows that there’s water deep below the ground. In Matthew 14:22-23, Jesus miraculously walks on water, and Nora is doing the same in that she’s performing an apparently impossible feat of survival.