51 pages • 1 hour read
Rodman PhilbrickWildfire
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Jeep
The Jeep is such a powerful symbol in Wildfire that it is almost a character in its own right. Sam often personifies it, thinking of it as his friend and savior. He even feels “like the machine [is] taking care of [him]. Like it [has] been waiting for a chance to save [his] life” (133). It is a symbol of hope and Sam’s Survival and Resilience Through Crisis. Because it was originally used by an American soldier in an overseas war, it is also thematically connected to Sam’s father. It guides and helps him as he escapes the fire, just like his father might have done if he were alive.
Although Sam feels like the Jeep is keeping him alive through a kind of magic, the truth is that he is the one who figured out how to drive it. He externalizes his own accomplishments onto the Jeep instead of taking credit for his own survival. At the story’s end, the Jeep becomes an important reward for Sam, as he is gifted the Jeep and looks forward to driving it when he turns 16. This detail parallels a conversation that Sam had with his dad when he was eight years old. He asked if his dad would buy him a Jeep when he turned 16; his dad laughed and said he would buy one when he could afford it. His dad is no longer alive, but his spirit and memory still help keep Sam alive through the Jeep, as though Sam is still under his father’s protection.
The Fire
If the Jeep is the book’s major positive symbol, the fire is its opposite. The wildfire is the biggest threat to Sam and Delphy’s survival, as well as the survival of all of the other people and animals in its path. The fire does not discriminate: It will kill anything and everything it touches. Like the Jeep, the fire is often personified. When it changes direction, Sam thinks that “maybe the fire just decided to go somewhere else” (13). On the radio, Phat Freddy says that the fire “sure looks like it’s living and breathing, except it’s breathing flames instead of air” (78).
Although the biker brothers start the fires, they are not in control of them. The fire indicates Nature’s Simultaneous Power and Fragility. Forest fires are natural, but they can also be very destructive. Surviving them takes luck, skill, and the right resources. Like the Jeep, the fire seems as though it is alive and making its own decisions, but it is not. Sam links the fire to war, describing trees catching fire as though they are artillery shells exploding. For Sam, fire is personal. His dad died in a fire, so it is particularly important and emotionally challenging for him to tackle his fear of it. In this sense, the fire inspires a transformation that allows Sam to face his memories of his father in a positive, productive way.
Cardinal Directions
Cardinal directions come up many times in Wildfire. Sam has a naturally good internal sense of direction. When Sam loses his confidence, he worries that his dad was wrong to praise his sense of direction. When he trusts himself and believes that he and Delphy are heading in the right direction, his internal compass is more reliable. The use of cardinal directions in the story represents Sam’s instincts for Survival and Resilience Through Crisis, as well as his sense of purpose. Sam’s internal compass fails again near the end of the book when he does not notice that the Jeep is heading east on the switchbacks for quite some time. Once again, when he is able to trust himself and listen to his instincts, he finds the right direction toward Freddy’s radio station and escapes the fire’s path.
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By Rodman Philbrick
