The Shack by: WM Paul Young

-The Garden: The garden is showing the diversity and complications of human emotions. Mack is so focused on what had happened to the point where he doesn’t realize the beauty that surrounds him.”Your question presumes that poison is bad, that such creations have no purpose. Many of these so-called bad plants, like this one, contain incredible properties for healing or are necessary for some of the most magnificent sonders when combined with something else. Humans have a great capacity for declaring something good or evil, without truly knowing.” This is when Sarayu is indirectly comparing emotions to the wild flowers and other plants.

-The waterfalls:“Sweetheart, Jesus didn’t think his Daddy was mean. He thought his Daddy was full of love and loved him very much. His Daddy didn’t make him die. Jesus chose to die because he and his Daddy love you and me and everyone in the world. He saved us from our sickness, like the princess.” The waterfall is actually a representation of sacrifice because of love. Mack told his daughter about an Native princess who sacrificed herself to save others. This is also referencing to Jesus. He sacrificed himself to save others. So in this book they are taking the waterfalls and making them show how people will sacrifice themselves to save other people.

-The Shack: The shack is a representation of Mack’s hard place. The shack is like the bad thoughts that consume him. The shack is put out there to be a reference of Mack going back to the shack to “confront” his inner demons.

-Sarayu’s bottle of tears: She mentions that she collects tears of peoples pains, sadness, and happiness. She then takes the bottle and pours it into the garden showing how happiness will expand overtime. All happiness starts with a tear.

“For almost two days, tied to the big oak at the back of the house, he was beaten with a belt and Bible verses every time his dad woke from a stupor and put down the bottle.” This quote specifically I am very fond of. It actually is creating a small plot. Mack in the beginning was close to God, but only superficially. Mack’s dad using the Bible as a detriment to Mack makes Mack run away from God. He has ran away from God because of the trauma he had with his father and the Bible. So this is kind of the beginning of why Mack has a doubtful relationship with God and his faith. His faith is broken apart due to his dad having substance abuse and using his belief in God to hide the internal issues.

A man name Mack grows up in a household in which his father is an abusive alcoholic. Later on in life he gets a family and has two daughters, a son, and a wife of course. Mack Took the kids camping. On the way they had fun times and enjoyed themselves. At the camp one day Missy goes missing and they never find her. They call the police to only find out that someone kidnapped her, and she was brutally murdered. Mack and his family became very sad and detached. Mack starts to doubt his faith in God. One day Mack gets a note that is signed “Papa” which is what the family calls God. The note said that Mack needed to come back to the shack. Mack became angry and upset because he has no clue who wrote the not. He then drives to that shack while the kids and his wife are gone visiting family. When he goes to the Shack he expects the killer to be there. In reality Papa (God), Jesus, and Sarayu (Holy Spirit) are there. Papa is played by an African American woman, Sarayu is played by an Asian woman, and Jesus is played as a Middle Eastern man. This is for visual representation of the trinity. He spends the time with them and learns to let go of those grudges and forgive and accept what has happened. At the end the family finds themselves at peace and remebers the best of times and not the worst,

The Shack movie	Both	The Shack book
The movie was less detailed than the book	They both had the flashback of traumas in Mack’s childhood.	The book is more heretical because it includes more dissident scripture.
Mack tricked Willie just to use his truck to go back to the shack.	They both had the murder scene exactly the same.	The book vividly explains how Papa was trying to help Mack.
	The book pretty much was exactly the same as the movie. It was right on cue.

This actually has an abundance of relatability to the real world. One of the relations are dealing with grief. I know personally that death is a very hard to overcome. Mack deals with the loss of someone so dear to him. His kids are his world. When someone close does die you will start to hate the world, and feel guilty. You also may start to hold a grudge against God. You start to blame everyone for what happened, but never think about putting truth into it all. The story also portrays a superficial version of seeing God. They make God as if he is person. They made him an African American woman, which is a very unusual portrayal to most people. This is relatable to society because it is making a connection to how God shows his love. People who are not familiar with Christianity will see it as understanding how God loves. Another connection would be the traumatic incident that Mack experiences as a kid. His traumas lead into when he is an adult. A lot of adults experience traumas that may cause them to be the person they are presently. This mostly is made up of psychological relations with the real world.

After Mack goes through so much pain and guilt, he soon finds redemption with his family. After Papa makes him realize what happened, it allowed Mack to be able to bring his family together. After the incident with the youngest daughter,Missy, the family became very detached from each other and God. Mack finds his faith which is the most important thing, but then he also is able to allow the family to be whole. Mack was detached and so were the kids. The kids started to shut each other out and be rebellious at first. Then when Mack finds his happiness so do the others. Mack talks to his family and they all have a heart to heart conversation. This lead to them being able to live with tragedy and be okay with. This doesn’t mean that they will forget, but they will remember with the best of memories.

The overall point here is him taking in what really happened. It’s the point where they technically “broke open” his heart and released his true emotional stability. They had to break him before he broke himself with guilt. With this they allow him to be able to accept things the way they are. They kind of open him up with the motto all happiness starts with a tear. The constant desperation for redemption is what cause him to not be able to find it. So this where Papa comes in. She focus’ on being able to keep Mack on the straight and narrow. That’s why this specifically is the climax. Mack having found himself helps the enntirety of the book be put together. He now is content with himself all because Papa, Sarayu, and Jesus.

The rising action here is actually demonstrated in the middle of the book. Not much towards the end. It is when God is explaining to Mack that things are the way they are. You can’t change what has happened. She also explains that life has to have hardships. She is on a constant roll of sorting out his feelings, and also helping him become well adjusted to how things really are. Mack knows bad things happen, but at moments in life you feel like bad things shouldn’t happen. God demonstrates human nature, and about the people around him. With this it will the escalate to even bigger events.

The conflict in this story is an example of man vs self. Mack lost his faith in God because of his daughter being murdered. He thinks that God didn’t help her, and so he holds a grudge against God. He trails on this everlasting path of spite, bitterness, and guilt. He is struggling so hard to forgive the killer, which I am sure all parents in his position would. The thing is he doesn’t know how the killer was raised, so it affected the way his mentality worked. Part of this issue also stems from his own experiences as a child as well. He is constantly abused by his father because his dad was an alcoholic. His struggles began with his traumatic childhood. Then overtime he became satisfied with his life because of him having an amazing family. Then all that sadness is release again after his daughter dies. He now holds two burdens. He has so much going through his mind that he is struggling to keep up with himself.

The main character Mack is the main character the author introduces. He is a very loving and kind-hearted man. Mack does soon have a burden that will stick to him, and it becomes very difficult to overcome. Mack’s daughter is kidnapped and brutally murdered which is how it all starts. Trauma fills the room for Mack because he always seems to have all these traumatic things on his mind.Mack is still a loving man, but becomes very begrudgement. Mack is angry at the world and God because of what happens to his daughter. Mack then gets a note signed “Papa” which is odd because that note said to go back to the shack. This does anger Mack because he doesn’t know who wrote it because nobody knows that God is referred to as Papa in his family. With Mack confused and angry, he goes back to the shack. When he gets there he doesn’t realize that this will become life changing. He meets Papa (God), Jesus, and Sarayu (The Holy Spirit). He has to be able to reconcile his faith in God, so that he doesn’t feel so melancholy. They take him through times that are hard for him. They bring back the burden of his childhood and of the tragedy with his daughter.”For almost two days, tied to the big oak at the back of the house, he was beaten with a belt and Bible verses every time his dad woke from a stupor and put down the bottle.” This actually allows Mack to be who he is. “Shortly after the summer that Missy vanished, The Great Sadness had draped itself around Mack’s shoulders like some invisible but almost tangibly heavy quilt. The weight of its presence dulled his eyes and stooped his shoulders. Even his efforts to shake it off were exhausting, as if his arms were sewn into its bleak folds of despair and he had somehow become part of it.” This specific quote is actually how he felt when Missy (his youngest daughter) was gone. The burdens just weigh on his shoulders, and he feels like everything around him is just being taken away from him. Mack when he felt like he needed to go back to the shack, he really was desperate to be able to do something about what had happened with Missy. After confronting his past that’s when he really started to become himself.Spending time with God and the other allows him to realize that he shouldn’t be angry at the world. He finds peace with his situation and also withing himself and his family. He then learns to smile again, and then he becomes one with reality. He knows that God will be on his side, and he knows his daughter is okay. With the feeling he now possess’, Mack simply just manages to help his family out. He gets them out of that dark place because he found God, and he doesn’t need to feel guilty and not forgive. As you can see Mack’s character is developed through events that are major in his life. The tragedy with his daughter and the time spent with God makes it easy for to realize what is most important.

Another main character was Missy. She wasn’t in the book very long at all. She was Mack’s youngest who was kidnapped brutally murdered. She was a very curious and sweet young girl. She had so much curiosity and was one who asked many questions. She is a small character in this book, but she is still one of the main characters. She is the one that causes the others to be able to develop. She actually allows him to see the beauty if life. Not only that, but she gives leverage to Mack when she dies by making him feel all the hatred he did. As bad as it sounds without the hatred, Mack would have never found peace.

Other characters such as Papa, Jesus, and Sarayu all allow Mack to develop too. They take him through a journey of finding himself. He will reconcile his beliefs while he is around these people.The book revolves around Mack, but without the others, he could not develop. Papa is represented in a very obscure way to Mack. She helps him realize who he is and makes him feel loved. Papa also helps him elevate himself to higher points in thought. Her telling him small stories makes him feel that God really does love him, and that everything will be alright. Sarayu is like a gentle individual. She does simple things to distract him a bit. She brings him out to somewhere beautiful aka the garden. When she does this she talks to him about his feelings ,and he seems to talk to her. Jesus plays a different role. He is a human, so it is easier for Mack to relate to him than the others. He actually acts almost as a friend or brother. He leads Mack to realize what the meaning of life really is.