Compare And Contrast Zoe And Wil

Zoe and Wil had very different upbringings but both ended up being “near feral”. First of all, Zoe grew up “tamed” or in other words she was raised to do what adults told her to do. Her entire life Zoe was forced to do chores for her mother’s boyfriends. These boyfriends along with Zoe’s own mother were very abusive, mean, and unfair to Zoe for many years until Zoe’s mother died. Zoe then moved into her before-last-Monday-never-heard-of uncle Henry’s house. Clearly Zoe had a difficult time living with all of these abusive adults. Wil on the other hand has had no adults to take care of him his entire life and he raised himself. The only living thing to be there for him was his white deer named Sister. Sister and Wil are dependent on
each other and need each other to survive in the wild. Due to the fact that Wil lives in the wild, he is uneducated in reading and writing and other academic subjects. Unlike Wil, Zoe is above grade level in her school work because she has had the opportunity to learn that Wil did not have. Wil overall had the freedom that Zoe was kept from having as a child. Even though they had very different childhoods, they had a few aspects in common. Most importantly, they both independently raised themselves.
The adults that lived with Zoe did not help her or interact her in any way besides abusive ways. Wil had no adults at all to help him through his childhood. They both also ended up at one point being wild or free. Wil has been free his whole life and Zoe has been free ever since she arrived at Uncle Henry’s house. Therefore Zoe and Wil had similarities and differences in their childhoods. Even though both Zoe and Wil had difficult childhoods, Wil had a worse time growing up. For instance, Wil had no parents to help him grow up. Although Zoe had an abusive mother, she still had a home to live in. Wil has lived in the woods his entire life with only small places of shelter that he could find. Wil was alone with his deer in the forest with nobody to help him for most of his life. They both had to raise themselves but Wil also struggled with education. Zoe had many opportunities to learn throughout her life and is now very educated. Wil had none of these opportunities to learn and is off in the real world with no academic skills. In other words the struggles that Zoe went through were only half as bad as the struggles that Wil had growing up. The only positive aspect of Wil’s childhood that Zoe didn’t have was freedom to do
what he wanted when he wanted.