Untamed

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2020

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.

Download PDF

Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Epilogue

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Quiz

PrologueChapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue Summary: “Cheetah”

Part 1 begins with Doyle recalling a trip to a local zoo with her wife and young daughters. The family ventures to the Cheetah Run and prepares to watch the exhibition. The zookeeper introduces the crowd to Tabitha, a female cheetah, and her best friend Minnie, a yellow Labrador Retriever. The zookeeper explains that “we raised Minnie alongside Tabitha to help tame her” (xiii). The exhibition starts with Minnie first chasing a stuffed bunny tied to the tailgate of a Jeep. Trained from birth to mimic Minnie’s actions, Tabitha soon follows and is rewarded with a steak. As the audience cheers in excitement, Doyle recalls how “I didn’t clap. I felt queasy” (xiv). Doyle watches Tabitha eat her reward and reflects on Tabitha’s tamed instincts that block her from unleashing her true deadly potential.

The zookeeper answers questions and assures the audience that Tabitha does not miss the wild as “she doesn’t know any different. She’s never even seen the wild” (xv). Meanwhile, Doyle’s eldest daughter Tish observes Tabitha “stalking the periphery, tracing the boundaries the fence created” and comments, “‘Mommy. She turned wild again’” (xv). Doyle is struck by her daughter’s words and imagines a conversation where Tabitha expresses her frustrations with her restricted life and her desire to live out in the wild. Doyle envisions Tabitha qualifying these frustrations and conceding that “‘I should be grateful. I have a good enough life here. It’s crazy to long for what doesn’t even exist’” (xvi). In reply, Doyle sees herself replying, “Tabitha. You are not crazy. You are a goddamn cheetah” (xvi).

Prologue Analysis

Doyle begins her memoir with the primary symbol of her work: the tamed female cheetah. She observes how Tabitha has been tamed in the sheltered environment of the zoo. Doyle sets up the dichotomy between Tabitha’s learned experiences in the safety and shelter of the zoo and the inherent wildness within her that remains to be unleashed. She constructs the metaphor of Tabitha as representative of all women who fall prey to the cycle of tameness. In Doyle’s perspective, rather than striking out on her own and unleashing her true primal potential, Tabitha settles “instead for store-bought steak and the distracted approval of sweaty strangers” (xiv-xv). Doyle forges the connection to the ways she and other women seek to appease their discontent by settling for less than they desire. In her imagined conversation with Tabitha, Doyle predicts what Tabitha would say if she could speak and envisions Tabitha expressing the similar frustrations felt by Doyle and by most women who feel “restless and frustrated” and filled with “this hunch that everything was supposed to be more beautiful than this” (xv).

Doyle previews her own story of empowerment while also speaking to women like herself in need of support and encouragement as they begin their own journeys to find freedom. Specifically, her eldest daughter is the one who notices the wild within Tabitha as she stands on the periphery of her habitat. Throughout her memoir, Doyle contemplates not only her own journey towards self-realization, but also her daughters’ journeys towards finding themselves as young women. Here she previews how she will explore her role as a parent in the development of her daughters and her son.