Echo Mountain

Ellie’s journey is catalyzed by the people in her life who need to heal, including herself. It begins in the first chapter, when Ellie saves Quiet after her mother pronounces him dead. Afterward, Ellie finds that she is on a long path of trying to save everyone she cares about, including her mother and sister, Cate, and the animals around her. Looking back, Ellie realizes that her story of healing really began when she saved her brother from the falling tree, sure that he would have died otherwise. Although their father was struck down, it was all to save Samuel. Her father’s accident serves as the primary motivation for Ellie as she searches for ways to revive him.

Ellie has a natural instinct to try to wake her father from his coma after she revives Quiet. She begins by splashing cold water on her father, which has little effect, and slowly progresses to more drastic tactics. Ellie creates a brew that she feeds to her father, intentionally crafted from healing balsam, river water, dew from grass, and Ellie’s own tears of mourning. Finally, she places of a jar full of angry bees against the side of his head, sending venom directly into his wound. She does this after being stung herself and experiencing the sensation of it all, recalling:

Bee venom, even in a bee-sized dose, was a sharp and painful business, more shocking than a burn or a hard slap. But it also infused, in me, a good kind of sharpness. A keenness. As if the poison were medicine as well, brewed from the best the mountain had to offer: something ancient and pure and perfect (271).

Ellie knows that the nature around her is brimming with healing secrets, and that she is aware of only a few of them: “Them and the trees and the flowers and every other kind of doctor to be had” (323). It turns out in the end that the source of healing Ellie was seeking was not in some brew or venom; instead, it was a more spiritual kind of healing in the music of her mother’s mandolin. Despite this conclusion, both Ellie and Cate are convinced that Ellie’s efforts to stir her father were part of a long and arduous journey of awakening. In healing her father, Ellie sees that her family begins to heal alongside him, coming together as they were before the accident. Ellie feels absolved of her guilt and able to move forward.

Along with healing her father and her family, Ellie also takes it upon herself to try to heal Cate. She has never dealt with such a thing before but dives into the task as if it is natural for her. Her father taught her to learn by doing, and that is exactly how Ellie learns to tend to Cate. She does as Cate instructs her, digging the maggots out and applying honey. Later, Ellie invents her own unique method of cleaning the wound when she melts deer hide into glue, creates a dam around Cate’s wound, and slowly pours the vinegar into it without washing away the honey. Cate and Ellie are highly similar, and Cate even calls Ellie a hag, remarking, “Nothing at all wrong with being a hag […] Nothing wrong with being smart that way. And anyone who thinks otherwise needs to think again” (300). Ellie’s mother remarks that she would make a fine doctor if only she were male, and Cate notes that she could be a nurse as well. Ellie believes she may be something else entirely: “I never thought about being a doctor—that wasn’t the word that had ever come to mind—but doing the work to wake my father and mend Cate had made me feel so very good that I wanted to be more like that girl. The one who tried to make people well” (166). Ellie’s and Cate’s tendencies toward natural healing methods were a common staple of the Great Depression era, as many people could not afford doctors or were, like the characters of the novel, isolated far away from town.

Ellie faces many obstacles, beginning with her family’s move to the mountain after losing everything in the stock market crash. Ellie’s family struggles to start their new life on the mountain but makes it work, and Ellie soon adapts to this wild existence. When her father is struck down in an accident, Ellie learns how strong she can be when faced with such challenges, stopping for nothing to do what it takes to heal her father and by proxy her family. Fire serves as the symbol of Ellie’s persistence and drive, and she professes this several times throughout her narrative: “So I made up my mind to listen to the flame in my chest, which sighed and roared and sighed again like a long piece of music I knew by heart but still seemed to be hearing fresh” (169).

After Ellie’s father falls into a coma, her family starts to drift apart. Her sister and mother see her as responsible for the accident, and Ellie seems to be the only one who is truly hopeful that her father will eventually wake up. Ellie resolves to try everything she can think of to stir him, including splashing him with cold water, throwing a snake into his room, and seeking help from the mysterious old hag up the mountain. Ellie persists even as her mother punishes and rejects her, keeping faith that her actions will eventually lead to a complete resolution of her family’s problems. Ellie’s persistence slowly pays off as her father begins to stir and groan, leading to his eventual waking.

Ellie persists through another difficult challenge: the task of healing Cate’s leg wound. After Cate was attacked by a fisher, Ellie found her in her cabin with a life-threatening leg wound. Ellie took it upon herself to take care of Cate, fetching honey for her wound and being stung many times in the process. Ellie does not give up on Cate, even as she worsens and Cate herself loses hope that she will get better: “In those twelve words, I heard the beginning of some kind of goodbye” (303). Larkin proves himself to have the gift of persistence like Ellie, and he never gives up on his grandmother. In the novel’s conclusion, he disappears to fetch a doctor from town. The doctor stitches up Cate’s wound, ensuring her survival. Cate notes that all difficult things must be taken on in small pieces: “Step by step. That’s the way out of something hard” (291).

Echo Mountain features several strong female characters who persist through great struggles. It can thus be considered a feminist novel. Ellie is the best example of this, as she manages to bring her father and family back together while also helping Cate, all when she is only 12 years old. Ellie’s mother remarks at one point that Ellie would make a fine doctor if she were a boy, indicative of the times that Ellie is living in. Ellie’s mother manages to hold her head above water during a time of crisis and keeps her family cared for through it all. Esther, Ellie’s sister, similarly holds her head high and shows her strength when she cares for her father and Cate. Cate is another strong female character in the novel; rather than simply accepting her fate, she persists and maintains hope that she will improve with Ellie and Larkin’s help. Cate also survived the death of her son and complete ostracization from the town and family she knew. It is no surprise that Ellie is growing into a strong and confident woman, as she is surrounded by women who model it.