Taming the Wild to Tame Oneself: Nature, Legacy, and Suicide in David Vann’s 'Sukkwan Island'

Roderick Nash’s monumental work on wilderness suggests that Alaska has represented America’s last frontier and the nation’s chance to do things right the first time. David Vann’s protagonists (a depressed, absent father and his immature son) choose Alaska as their ideal place for personal escapes and new beginnings. However, their recognition of the region’s beauty gradually yields to the perception of its fragility, eventually reflecting and amplifying their personal inadequacies. The unexpected suicide of 13-year-old Roy not only nails his father and the reader to the unpredictability of that violent f/act, but also to the inevitable acknowledgment that the wild surrounding landscape might be seen as an accomplice. This paper examines the interconnections of nature and suicide from the perspective of legacy by showing how the redemptive power of fiction as acted out by the writer cannot transcend past errors, familial dysfunctions, self-obsessions, and a haunting sense of doom.