Coming Of Age In Unknown Country Analysis

The west has been a place that people have seen as somewhere personal destiny could be fulfilled and persistence lives. Visions of freedom, wide-open spaces, uncompromised opportunity, and success became the representation of the west to many people outside of the region. In reality, the west's society and economy rarely fit how others talk about is. Kim Barnes was a westerner whose journeys of life exemplified the struggles, instability, and turbulence of the real west. Barnes explored her own experiences in the west through writing her personal memoirs. Kim Barnes' In the Wilderness; Coming of Age in Unknown Country delved into her childhood and adolescence as a logger's daughter in northern Idaho. The forms of Barnes writing illustrated their personal struggles against the reality of western life. Family and transience played major roles in the author's lives while religion and rebellion were important forces in Barnes' adolescence.

Stability and economic success were rarely found upon arrival in the west but with time one could find what they were looking for. People often moved a number of times in hopes that their next stop would bring them to their destiny. The continuous search for the mythic west caused a great deal of migration and transiency in the region. Although Barnes was a native westerner, transience also greatly affected their lives. Barnes usually moved seasonally and for better jobs for her dad. Reflecting on her childhood, Barnes recalled, "So much had changed since the first years of my life, spent living in the woods, years when we moved from one logging site to another.”