The Mountain Between Us

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2010

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prelude-Chapter 7

Chapters 8-20

Chapters 21-33

Chapters 34-51

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Background

Genre Context: Survival Romance

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death.

The Mountain Between Us is a work of survival romance. Ben and Ashley find themselves in extreme circumstances after the plane crash. They’re lost in the wilderness, with no traces of humanity anywhere near them. They have extreme injuries, lack food, and face the cold and the dangers of the wilderness. The novel explores their struggle to survive these circumstances, highlighting the resilience of humanity and their physical and mental strength when facing extreme circumstances.

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One major component of their survival is love. For Ben, his love has two elements: his past with Rachel and his growing feelings for Ashley. Both help motivate him since he hopes to return to Rachel one day and also has a strong desire to save Ashley. This exemplifies how survival romance novels place characters in extreme situations that eliminate many factors of everyday life. They don’t have to worry about jobs, typical responsibilities, or any of the mundanities of everyday life; instead, they’re focused only on their survival and their commitment to one another.

One important component of Ben and Ashley’s relationship is that it isn’t based in any way on physical attraction or lust. Despite seeing each other naked, helping each other bathe, and even helping each other use the bathroom, they never experience moments of lust or physical affection. Instead, the novel explores their love and relationship on a deeper level. Their affection forms not out of physical lust but instead from their emotional attachment to each other. Central to that growing attachment is the novel’s setting since their extreme isolation and the harsh conditions provide the opportunity to get to know each other intimately and rely on one another for survival. This is a crucial component of the work as a survival romance: They fall in love because they must rely on each other for survival.

Cultural Context: The Mountain Between Us (2017) Film Adaptation

Charles Martin’s novel The Mountain Between Us was adapted into a film in 2017. Directed by Hany Abu-Assad, the film stars Idris Elba and Kate Winslet. In the film, Ben’s name is Ben Bass, Ashley’s is changed to Alex Martin, and their pilot is Walter instead of Grover. The film received mixed reviews, and people questioned the realism of the characters’ survival. Multiple critics noted the emphasis on the love story rather than the survival aspect of Ben and Alex’s journey. For example, Tim Grierson, writing for Screen Daily, noted how the film “struggles to balance its life-or-death stakes with its far more florid love story” (Grierson, Tim. “‘The Mountain Between Us’: Toronto Review.” Screen Daily, 11 Sept. 2017).

The film’s plot deviates from the novel’s in several ways that emphasize Alex and Ben’s relationship with each other. First, the two have sex in the middle of their time in the wilderness, highlighting the physicality of their relationship instead of showing their building emotional attachment to each other. Second, Ben doesn’t struggle with continued guilt and commitment to his wife, revealing to Alex early on that his wife died of a brain tumor. In addition, during their time in the wilderness, Ben lacks the survival skills that he has in the novel; he doesn’t use a GPS to track their location or travel dozens of miles to find a way to survive. Instead, they spend much of their time awaiting rescue, eventually finding a lumber yard, largely by luck. Each of these changes fails to engage with the complexities of Martin’s novel. Instead of depicting a journey of healing through emotional love for each other, the film portrays two characters who form a physical relationship, and Ben’s past with Rachel is largely absent from the film.