Existentialism study on Strayed’s Self-Discovery in Wild by Cheryl Strayed

This thesis attempts to analyze an autobiographical novel Wild by Cheryl Strayed. The novel tells about Strayed’s life story in her self-discovery process by doing a journey cross over the Pasific Crest Trail alone. Strayed became a destructive one, after her mother passed away. The aim of this thesis is to know the characteristic of Strayed, and to see how Strayed shows her existence to find her truly identity. In this thesis, the researcher uses descriptive qualitative method. And uses new criticism theory to describe the characterization of Strayed, and Soren Kierkegaard’s existentialism theory to describe Strayed’s existence stage by stage. The result of the study shows that Strayed has found her inner peace and herself as she used to be. Strayed also has been back into her own self as she is.