The Use of Epigraph’s in Lumberjanes

In Lumberjanes, the field manual chapter page before each new section of the graphic novel, describes and foreshadows the content of that section. For example, the first chapter is the “Up all Night” badge for which a Lumberjane must “have enjoyed the first wind of a new day with the moon above her head and without sleep, energetically explored the new possibility of viewing the world under the moon”. While the description of the badge that the manual provides does describe what the girls end up doing by the end of the chapter, in mentioning that a Lumberjane must learn “how to work against the unnatural and supernatural forces that a Lumberjane is bound to confront”, it is the brief quote below the name of the corresponding badge that is most telling of the adventure to come.

The first epigraph reads “Learn what goes bump in the night”, and accordingly it is the sound of the wolves that first sees all the girls together and launches their “all night” adventure. In the second section the epigraph reads “Because drowning is a scary way to go” and in the section Mal literally does drown and it is CPR (kind of but not really) that ends up saving her life.The manual reads the the “Naval Gauging Badge” requires that a Lumberjane, among other things, know how to “row, pole, scull, and steer a boat; also bring a boat properly alongside and make fast”, as well as “the importance of a life preserver, CPR, and the basic understanding of how to respond to emergency situations” skills which the girls use to rescue each other (although Ripley truly displays the best emergency response of all in her causal saving of Mal’s life). This use of this literary device in accompaniment with the field manual is present in each section and more often than not, an exact description of the events to come can be found on that manual page, although how those events come to pass is not nearly as predictable.