Jack Haddon -- "A Mystery Resolved"

   
   I think there is much more going on in the assigned passage from page 189 than 
   you have understood.  Your title and introductory paragraph indicate that you 
   haven't really come to grips with this passage beyond the idea that it indicates
   Cheryl Strayed has changed.   But there's not really much of a mystery about her 
   motivations for her trip.  She says very clearly elsewhere that even though it was 
   an impulsive decision in a way, she knew she had to do something to pull herself 
   out of the self-destructive cycle of casual "hook-ups" and drug use and get back 
   to the person she saw herself being before the death of her mother.   

   Although you say different things later too, the first paragraph says "Strayed 
   came to a realization that she found her self-isolation enjoyable."  
   I really doubt that "enjoyable" is *ever* a word she would have used about 
   this point in her journey and the main idea is not just that she found being 
   alone to be a pleasure. You never really address why she says "I didn’t feel 
   sad or happy. I didn’t feel proud or ashamed. I only felt that in spite of all 
   the things I'd done wrong, in getting myself here I had done right."
   
   I think her emotional state at this point is pretty complicated and interesting. 
   She acknowledges that she made a lot of mistakes along the way in her life and 
   she realizes she had to get away from the situations and attitudes that led her 
   into those mistakes.  She says she misses her old life (mostly her former husband, 
   Paul, I think) but doesn't want to go back.  I think that's a realization that 
   she has changed and that that part of her life is over.  (That seems to be mostly
   the point you picked up on, but I hope you can see it's not the only thing 
   that is happening here.)

   The sentences "I didn’t feel sad or happy. I didn’t feel proud or ashamed" seem to me 
   to be something like numbness from emotional exhaustion at the end of a struggle, or a 
   realization that she has turned a corner and is now on a different path.  She discovers
   in this moment that she did the right thing by undertaking the hike, that going on the 
   hike has started to pull her out of the self-destructive spiral.  But those problems 
   are still too close and there's still too much for her to do for her to feel 
   happy or proud of what she has done so far.   The "in getting myself here, I had 
   done right"  is the real point of the whole passage, I think.  But you hardly mention 
   that.  

   It would probably have been better to pick your own passage here because it's clear
   you did not find that much to say about this one.  And in fact you spend most of 
   your paper discussing other incidents like the way she spent her last two dollars
   on an ice cream cone at the end of her trip.    

   On the other hand, your writing is pretty good here -- I think the less formal tone
   suits you better.  

   Content/Evidence -- C

   Structure/Mechanics -- B+