Julie of the Wolves Themes

Julie of the Wolves takes place in the barren and unforgiving Alaskan wilderness, where a 13-year-old Inuk girl named Miyax Kapugen is alone, starving, and lost. She’s fled to the Arctic tundra after her husband, Daniel, tried to rape her. The novel follows Miyax as she struggles to survive treacherous conditions and find her way back to civilization, and as such, the book presents a broader conflict between humans and nature. The book specifically…

Even though Kapugen, Miyax’s father, doesn’t appear in person until the end of the novel, the reader learns a lot about his character through Miyax’s many memories of him. Kapugen played a formative role in Miyax’s life: after Miyax’s mother died, she and Kapugen moved to a seal camp to live according to the old Inuit way of life. Miyax grows up believing that her father died while on a seal-hunting excursion (although…

Miyax Kapugen straddles a divide between two vastly different worlds: her ancestors’ Inuit traditions and gussak (white) American culture, which disrupts and displaces the old way of life. Miyax’s very name illustrates this conflict. Among her own people, she is Miyax Kapugen, an Inuit girl who takes pride in the rich cultural and spiritual traditions her people—though these beliefs are increasingly perceived as “old-fashioned,” even within the Inuit community. In another world, she is Julie…