Identity In Walk Two Moons By Sharon Creech

A person’s identity changes much over time. The reasons may vary, from life experiences, friends, or merely growth, people go through a multifold of changes during his or her lifetime. In the novel Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech, we accompany thirteen-year-old Salamanca Tree Hiddle, as she walks her late mother’s footsteps to Lewiston, Idaho in an attempt to better understand her. As Sal travels throughout the country, she tells us her best friend Phoebe’s story, which in truth is just a cover for her own, or as she says “The reason Phoebe’s story reminds me of that plaster wall and the hidden fireplace is that beneath Phoebe’s story was another one. Mine.” (Creech 3) . As we read through the book, we witness the changes Salamanca goes through

In the very first chapter, Salamanca thought a bit in a roundabout way tells us of her mother’s death. As we dive just a little deeper into the story, we discover that she was unwilling to accept her mother’s death, “But I had decided to go and I would go, and I had to be there by my mother’s birthday. This was extremely important. I believed that if there was ay chance to bring my mother back home it would happen on her birthday” (Creech 6). Salamanca still was to visit her mother’s grave, and to give her such opportunity, her grandparents bring her on a road trip along her late parent’s path. Which she uncomfortably agrees to as it is something she feels she has to do, “It was not a trip I was eager to take, but it was one I had to take” (Creech

One could say her thoughts begin to have more depth when Phoebe’s lunatic first appears, “It bothered me, what he had said. It occurred to me that my father didn’t hug me as much anymore and that maybe I was starting to flinch whenever anyone touched me. I wasn’t always like that. We used to be a hugging family.” (Creech 63) , not to mention, much of Sal’s changes are reflected on how she sees Phoebe’s actions, “ Ben touched Phoebe’s arm. She flinched.[...] And that, too, bothered me. I had already noticed how tense Phoebe’s whole family seemed, how tidy, how respectable, how thumpingly stiff. Was I becoming like that? Why were they like that?[...] Had I been drawing away from my mother? Did she have empty spaces left over? Was that why she left?” (Creech