Gandhi once said "Traveling along the route, the pilgrim will meet richer experiences from day to day so that he may have a glimpse of the beauty he is destined to become"(qtd, in Attenborough 79, 81). Through the help of a menagerie of characters, Frazier's "pilgrim", Inman of Cold Mountain, reaches his final goal, not just the physical goal of Cold Mountain and Ada, but also the mental goal of recapturing his pre-war self. The most influential of these characters is the Goat Lady, who provides Inman with "richer experiences" along his self-defining pilgrimage and gives him a "glimpse of the beauty" he desires to achieve, a glimpse of his final goal.
             Inman first sees the "pinched-off little scrag of a person hunkered down under a big hemlock" (263), and could not tell if he is looking at a man or a woman. With a face pale from lack of food and injuries, Inman, who is extremely trusting for an outlier, approaches this stranger in hopes of receiving food, without which he might not be able to reach his final goal. In this display of trust, he shows a need to believe that people are still relatively good at heart. Here to prove the existence of this compassion, is the stranger, known as the Goat Lady, who provides him not only food, but also much needed rest and medicine. These actions exceed Inman's expectations, and show that kindness can be found even in the middle of a war.
             As an outlier, running away from the war, Inman had not eaten in a several days and the Goat Lady can easily see that. Her first act of kindness is to prepare Inman food, in the form of one of her small goats, which mean so much to her. But without hesitating she kills a goat for a hungry man she hardly knows. The task of killing the goat is a great sacrifice she does not take lightly because of her love of the goats. Her goats mean a lot to her; they keep her company and give h
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