Discussion Topic
Miyax's journey to San Francisco in "Julie of the Wolves."
Summary:
Miyax's journey to San Francisco in Julie of the Wolves represents her quest for identity and belonging. She struggles between her Eskimo heritage and the modern American world, ultimately seeking a place where she can reconcile these two aspects of her life.
Why is Miyax trying to go to San Francisco in Julie of the Wolves?
Miyax is trying to get to San Francisco because she essentially feels that she has nowhere else to go. Her own life situation has become unbearable, but she has received a friendly letter from a penpal on the mainland, telling her about San Francisco and inviting her to visit. San Francisco sounds wonderful to her, and so she sets out to get there on her own.
Miyax' mother is dead, and although she had lived an idyllic life for a time with her father at seal camp, he had sent her to live with a disagreeable aunt so that she could go to school as required by law, while he himself had gone to war. Miyax has since been told that he is dead too. Although she has trouble fitting in with her more Anglicized classmates, Miyax loves to learn, but her aunt does not have the money to send her to the mainland to further her education...
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when she has gone as far as she can go at the local school. In accordance with old Eskimo tradition, Miyax' father has made arrangements for her to marry Daniel, the son of his friend Naka. Hoping that Naka will send her away to school if she marries his son, Miyax does so, only to find that something is wrong with Daniel. Still a child, Miyax has been promised to a boy with delayed mental development whom she has never even met, and when Daniel clumsily and forcefully tries to assert his marital rights with Miyax, she runs away. She carries with her a precious letter from Amy, her penpal in California. Amy has written about all the wonderful things they will do if Miyax can come to visit, and so, having no options left, Miyax sets off to get there by herself.
Did Miyax make it to San Francisco in "Julie of the Wolves"?
Miyax, also known as Julie, never does get to San Francisco. Early on in the story, Miyax pledges to run away from Alaska and from her "terrifying husband" to what she imagines will be the haven of San Francisco, which is where her pen pal lives. In her letters, Miyax's pen pal, Amy, repeatedly asks Miyax, "When are you coming to San Francisco?" San Francisco offers so much hope to Miyax primarily because Amy, her friend, is there. After reading one of Amy's letters, Miyax whispers to herself, "Daylight is spelled A-M-Y." The implication here is that San Francisco represents to Miyax the chance to metaphorically replace the darkness in her life with something brighter.
The more Amy writes about San Francisco, the more clearly Miyax is able to imagine it. The house in San Francisco grows "more real than [her] house in Barrow," and Miyax comes to know "each flower on the hill where Amy's house [stands], each brick in the wall around the garden, and each tall blowing tree." So although Miyax never actually makes it to San Francisco, a vivid impression of the place does exist inside of her head. In a sense, although she does not get to San Francisco, San Francisco does get to her.
At the end of the story, Miyax discovers that her father is still alive, and she decides to travel back to the village where he lives to live with him. In doing so, Miyax ultimately decides to embrace and reconcile herself to her own culture, rather than escape to the new, alien culture of San Francisco.