Friendship In Erica Ferencik's The River At Night

Through difficulty and many obstacles, the four friends appear to actually improve and strengthen their bond by working together in order to find freedom from the intimidating wilderness in Maine. Wini and her friends realize throughout the novel that the most important thing is to stay together and not turn against one another. At the most rough times one must need their friends to be with them, “A bound in our lostness as we ever were as friends, we blundered through the living darkness as soundlessly as we could, but it was hard to believe that every footfall, every unintentional snap of branch or rustle of lead didn’t wake the world and call the hounds of hell down upon us” (Ferenick, pg. 181). During tough times in Erica Ferencik’s novel,

Each one of the women has their individual survival skills and combines both their friendship as well as durability to reinforce their bond. Throughout the novel, it is mainly Rachel and Pia who get into small fights and quarrels but it is repeatedly Wini and Sandra who convince them that everything will be okay and that they all must think clearly without doubts because that’s what is truly bringing them all down. In The River at Night, there is a lot of nature and wilderness present. Generally in personification, the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman is required and in this novel, there is personification when Erica Ferencik describes the river as “murmuring, turning, and dreaming”, she has given a river human characteristics. The reason why Wini has chosen to contribute coming on this trip with her girlfriends is because she has been through a lot and thought this would be an excellent distraction from her personal problems. Although, Wini does not know that leaving her personal issues behind would cause more problems to arise between her and her friends. Wini has many external conflicts among her three friends in this

Along with such disagreements that the four friends experience, they all know that there is nothing more significant than having hope, trust, and faith. Wini and her friends are aware that without hope and faith, they will get nowhere, “I surveyed our exhausted, grimy faces and remembered someone telling me that hope is always the last thing to die” (Ferencik, pg. 160). Losing faith in loved ones will never leave one to success, having trust and hope is consistently required. In The River at Night, the four friends lose hope and confidence in themselves due to the fact they are hopeless and desperate. There is also a comparison to hope in the poem called Mother to son. In this poem, the mother is telling her son to never give up on things that may seem impossible near the beginning. The poem is about continuing life as it is because sooner or later it will improve. Running away from problems are never the correct solutions and even though others’ lives may seem crystal clear, there are always going to be tacks and stains in