The Mountain Between Us

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death, child abuse, pregnancy loss, and animal death.

“I don’t know how much time we have, don’t know if we’ll make it out…but…I take it all back. I was wrong. I was angry. I never should’ve said it. You were thinking about us. Not you. I can see that now. You’re right. Right all along. There’s always a chance. Always.”

Ben’s cryptic message to Rachel opens the novel, though readers don’t yet know what happened between them or what Ben is apologizing for. However, after finishing the novel, it’s clear that Ben’s words introduce the theme of Hope as a Driving Force in Humanity. Just after the plane crash, Ben admits that Rachel was “right all along” because “there’s always a chance”—discussing her decision to want to continue her pregnancy despite the risk to herself. Ben can now see that hope drove Rachel’s decision; similarly, he must find and keep hope to survive in the wilderness.

“I turned [the recorder] in my hand. ‘I’m seldom without it.’

‘Like an albatross?’

I laughed. ‘Something like that.’”

When Ashley asks Ben about his recorder—which he hangs around his neck—she jokingly compares it to “an albatross.” This comparison is an allusion to Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” In the poem, an albatross guides a ship out of difficult weather, but then the mariner shoots the bird, leading to further misfortune. As punishment, the crew forces him to wear the albatross around his neck in penitence for his actions. Although Ashley doesn’t know Ben’s past when she makes this joke—instead referring to his need to wear it for his job—the allusion conveys the recorder’s importance to Ben.