Isolation And Adolescence In The Gathering By Kelley Armstrong

The Gathering; Adolescence in Isolation
An Isolated life is no life at all. There’s truly no point of going through life if you go through it all alone. The 2011 novel The Gathering by Kelley Armstrong is an exploration of the adolescent life of a teenage girl in an isolated and rather tragic small town in British Columbia. Maya Delaney is a 16 year old, adopted Indigenous girl living on the outskirts of Vancouver Island. With less than 200 people in her community and nowhere to go but forests for miles, living in an isolated town had its effects on Maya’s development. A prolonged experience of isolation within a small town restricts the opportunity to have a well-rounded experience of life and of the world. The primary ways that isolation

The community in which Maya grew up is a “medical” research town that does not actually specialize in medication. In fact, the employees of the St. Cloud research facility are experimenting to revive a mutated gene which would give people supernatural abilities. The only reason this is made possible is because of how isolated the town is from the rest of the world. “It’s privately owned. The whole town is. The St. Cloud Corporation bought the land a few years before [Maya] was born, and decided it was the perfect place for a top-secret research facility” (8) This quote highlights how being secluded from the rest of the world allows certain things to fly under the radar. “The St. Clouds give [them] the best of everything. That’s how they lured employees into a community in the middle of nowhere” (42) The benefits make it worth it for the families that reside in Salmon Creek to stay hush-hush about what goes down in the lab. But even within such a tight-knit community, certain members can feel

The two of them live deep in the forest, far from the rest of the town. They generally kept to themselves, causing Rafe and (especially) Annie to be ostracized from the community. “[Rafe] showed up with his sister, and moved into a cabin that doesn’t even have electricity. People have been concerned about them, but he’s made it very clear that he doesn’t want anyone’s help.” (347) Rafe and Annie’s presence might be seen as a “glitch in the Matrix'' since they wreck what is designed to be a perfect ecosystem. Rafe, and the townspeople isolate themselves from one another, breaking apart the community. “Hell, this town was harder to find than I thought. Wasn’t even on the map. Then I get here and find out [Rafael] is living with his sister in some cabin in the woods.” (365) This quote is said to Maya by a man who came to hunt Rafe. Rafael’s lack of trust for, and extreme isolation from the rest of the community means that even when he is in danger, there is no one there to support