The Shack, written by WM. Paul Young is a novel that focuses around symbolism and religion. At a first glance one can assume The Shack to be just another everyday religion novel. But the shack proves to be much more than that from just the first couple of pages. If symbolism was a genre, (who knows maybe it is) The Shack would fit right in, hook, line and sinker. In a mere thirteen pages Young manages to supply you with four occurrences of symbolism. With repetitive form fresh in my head,
the consistent maintaining of a principle under new guises.
I decided to crack down on Young’s “hidden code”.
It was towards the end of Chapter Two when I began to notice something seemed familiar. One page 34, Mack, the main character is having a conversation with his youngest daughter, Missy. Missy, only six years old, is portrayed as the epitome of innocence. On the same page Young writes,
She snuggled
deeper into his arms. “Okay! Hold me close. G’night, Daddy. I love you.” And she was out, drifting deep into a sound sleep with only good and sweet dreams.”
This proves that Missy is to pure, and naive to think of anything negative occurring. We learn in the books summary, that Missy will eventually be kidnapped and murdered. This concept of an innocent being sacrificed sounded way to familiar.
I decided to reboot and start over. Almost immediately I found what I was looking for. On page 10, in the foreword, Mack discusses his childhood trauma. His father was an abusive drunk (Physically and Mentally). Even though Mack’s childhood was already distinguished as traumatic. There was a specific moment when Mack lose his innocence. When Mack was thirteen, he confided to a camp counselor, on a spiritual retreat about his fathers abuse. The camp counselor, a buddy of Mack’s father, breaks Mack’s trust. Mack’s father acted quickly to teach Mack a lesson. He tied Mack to a tree out back, for two days, whipping Mack whenever he was sober enough to stand up. 
This is Mack’s breaking point. This is the moment when Mack becomes tainted, his innocence deflowered. Another instance in the story when and innocent is being sacrificed.
The next occurrence is easier to identify. On page 30, Young introduces, an ancient legend. Mack tells his daughters a story about a chiefs daughters sacrifice. The village was sick, and there was no cure. Each day more and more villagers were dying. The villagers eldest medicine man had predicted a prophecy,
an illness that could be stopped only if a pure and innocent daughter of the chief would willingly give up her life for her people. In order to fulfill the prophecy, she must voluntarily climb to a cliff above the Big River and from there jump to her death onto the rocks below.”
The Elder’s agreed this sacrifice was to devastating, and could not ask any of the daughters to fulfill the prophecy. But then the chiefs daughters husband to be contracted the illness. To save his life the daughter sacrificed herself.
This scene is the foundation for all of Young’s symbolism. The sacrifice of an innocent, lead to the greater good of the people. Mack’s trauma caused him to leave home, which lead to him meeting his wife, and starting a family. Missy’s death leads to Mack’s enlightenment and confrontation with God. I am interested to see how this repetition progresses throughout the story.
Group Four 
Hey Sofia,
You took a great look at repetitive form. I hadn’t really noticed the examples you mentioned until we discussed them in class. Awesome reading! As far as genre, The Shack seems to me like a myth and/or grief narrative. Myths are used to explain things we don’t understand. They also tend to be highly symbolic and work on many different levels. For example, The Shacks heavy use of symbolism or supernaturalism is similar to that of the Bible, especially the New Testament. I think that this is certainly intentional. Young is writing within a Christian genre and mindset; it makes sense that his own writing would mirror that of the Christian bible. Secondly, The Shack is also a grief narrative. Grief narratives follow loss and the many processes that individuals go through to overcome with or deal with it. After the loss of his daughter, Mack withdraws from society before using his faith to come to terms with her death. I think that The Shack is primarily a piece of myth, but it is interesting to consider the ways grief narratives and myth can overlap. After all, mythology is the way we explain or understand something we cannot explain or understand. Grief narratives are our way of accepting the unacceptable.
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Good eye Sofia, you’re keeping track of a lot of things!
Another form I thought The Shack was using was Qualitative Progressive form. Often, Mach’s father is mentioned and when he is Mach’s thoughts of him are usually met with disgust. Which, of course, is only reasonable considering the fact that his father use to beat him. After the Foreword, the first chapter opens up with Mach receiving a letter from who we think to be his father, “Papa,” and in that Instant he get so mad that he slips on ice and splits his head open. This shows us readers that he is very irritated by his father and then we feel that negativity every time his father is mentioned. “The note, though never far from his mind, was not mentioned. He still didn’t know what to think of it, and he didn’t want Nan included if it turned out to be some kind of cruel joke” (Young 13). From Liz’s blog we know that God probably takes the form of his father, “Papa,” in the shack and Mach has to face his inner conflicts. So all of these times that the father is mentioned are mostly likely a foreshadowing to that moment Mach meets God in the shack. I don’t know, we’ll have to just keep reading!
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Sofia you did an amazing job comparing The Shack as a repetitive form. I find that yes it can be seen as a repetitive form but it can also be a qualitative progressive form.
Mainly because a quantity is obvious and measurable; qualities are inferred and felt, and thus evoke moods. A given mood, once it is present, allows us to enter another mood, or state of mind, that might follow. A commonplace literary trope that employs qualitative progression is “foreshadowing.” You said in class that you were mad at the father because you felt like he wasn’t being a good father, and we talked about that he was probably having problems being a good father because of the abuse he went through as a child. Thinking about this conversation made me think that it was a qualitative progressive form because at first we felt bad for Mack. But then seeing how Mack was being during the rest of the book we changed our mood and our mind set of Mack. The Shack makes us go through different emotions at first we feel happy about his relationship with his daughter Missy, but as the story goes on we fear for not only Missy but for Mack when his daughter is abducted and then our mood changes to sadness and hurt. So I feel that this book plays with our mood because it changes everytime something happens in the story. But over all your blog was amazing and well said about repetitive with the innocence of Mack and Missy.
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