Pines

At the beginning of Pines, Ethan is literally nameless, his identity stripped away on his entrance into the town. Eventually, in the opening chapters, he retrieves fractured pieces of who he was before Wayward Pines: a Secret Service agent. As Ethan fights to discover the truth about Wayward Pines, though, he tests The Malleability of Identity. His search for the truth entails him learning just how much of his identity is easily changed—and what few core pieces of him, despite Pilcher’s best efforts, remain the same.

Ethan’s clothes, including their state and fit, generally reflect his identity throughout the story. On arriving, for example, Ethan is “dressed in black pants and a black jacket with an oxford shirt underneath […] A black tie hung by the flimsiest knot from his collar” (3). His suit is typical garb for a federal agent. Ethan himself relies on it as a way of affirming his identity, such as when he calls the reluctant hotel desk clerk’s attention to it: “[D]o you know why I’m wearing a black suit? […] I’m a special agent with the United States Secret Service” (32). His identity as an agent is tied to his uniform, which communicates that status to others. However, after his first trip to the hospital, when he puts his suit back on, it is awkward to “lace up the shoes over his bare feet, button his stained, white oxford, and struggle for two agonizing minutes to knot his tie” (45). Although he struggles to maintain his previous identity, his federal agent uniform literally doesn’t fit right anymore.

Ethan’s initial shift away from his past identity and toward a new one is similarly reflected in his possessions. Although Ethan still wears his suit when he wakes after the car accident, he has lost his wallet, badge, gun, and briefcase, all of which highlight his identity as a federal agent. The one possession he retains after the car accident is his Swiss army knife. This one retained item, in turn, illustrates how some small part of Ethan’s identity does at least remain unchanged—namely, The Need to Know, which for Ethan is inextricable from the will to survive.

The motif of clothing as a reflection of identity continues as Ethan’s experience in Wayward Pines slowly strips his identity away, leaving him uncertain as to who he is. Ethan evades capture several times, but when he finally wakes in the hospital after falling unconscious, he’s wearing a hospital gown. When Beverly helps him escape, she brings clothing for him, but Ethan doesn’t have time to change into it. Instead, he continues in the gown, which he eventually loses as well: “[A] hedge of dripping bushes […] nearly ripped the flimsy hospital gown off him […] The gown hung in tatters around his neck like a shredded cape. He tore it off” (167). In this climactic scene, Ethan runs through downtown Wayward Pines literally naked. His identity as federal agent is completely gone, and with it, his authority. When Ethan does manage to find some clothing again, it is from a resident of Wayward Pines; however, the fit is not quite right: “The shirt and jeans were a few sizes small” (181). He also steals the boots of the man he just killed, which are too large, but he “kept adding layers of socks until his feet fit snugly inside” (181). Ethan has begun to adapt, his identity shifting to allow him to present as a resident of Wayward Pines—but though the clothing is on him, it doesn’t quite fit right either.

Ethan’s journey to the truth parallels his journey to his new identity in Wayward Pines. In the end, Ethan wears Pope’s old uniform, “dark brown canvas pants and a hunger-green long-sleeved button-down, just like his predecessor” (288). At least on the surface, his old identity has been stripped away, and he is now clothed in the garb of his new identity: sheriff of Wayward Pines. As with the town, though, there may be more of Ethan’s core identity lingering beneath the surface; this question of identity remains for the next novel in the series to explore.