For centuries humankind has been drawn to nature. Ancient civilizations saw nature as divine, the Greek and Roman gods all reflect some aspect of the natural world. Even today, people leave civilization to live in nature. Chris McCandless’s journey, leaving civilization behind, contained within the book Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer, reflects this. There are countless television shows, books, songs, poems and art that reflect Earth’s natural appeal. What makes nature so captivating to mankind? Nature offers freedom, beauty, and the allure of the unknown. Men throughout time have striven to find freedom in society, it is what the United States of America was founded on. But true freedom cannot be found amongst civilization, it must be obtained …show more content…
The human brain is wired to seek knowledge, to discover what is unknown. And this is exactly what nature provides. Frederick Jackson Turner, an American historian and harvard professor, had a theory that the American democracy was not perpetuated by the desire for freedom or independence, but for the allure of the unknown of nature contained within the American frontier. As he put it "American democracy was born of no theorist's dream; it was not carried in the Susan Constant to Virginia, nor in the Mayflower to Plymouth. It came out of the American forest, and it gained new strength each time it touched a new frontier," (Turner 226) This “Frontier Theory” meant that the success of the American governing system relies of a frontier of sorts. But in this day and age, where is this American frontier? It’s not the west, it’s not Alaska, it could be argued that there is no longer an unknown in America. This is the problem Chris McCandless faced in Krakauer’s book Into The Wild. He was searching for the unknown, it had a draw for him, but it is not easy to find. He achieved this by neglecting to take a map with him on his adventure. In the end this led to his demise, and the premise that he was foolhardy and incompetent. But in his eyes this was the only way to find what he was looking for, and it was worth the risks. With modern technology nature has lost its anonymity, but the unknown can still be found within
In the book ‘’Into The Wild” (1996), by Jon Krakauer the author described the journey of a young man named Christopher Johnson McCandles. Who traveled different states of the United States as Alexander Supertramp. Jon Krakauer traces Alex’s journey into the wild by providing information from a third person point of view and also shares the comments of people whom encounter Alex throughout his journey that ended when Alex decided to hitchhiked to Alaska and travel by foot into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley . The highest mountain in North America, with a summit elevation of 20,310 feet above sea level. Alex body was found four months later frozen and decomposed by a moose hunter.
Jon Krakauer’s fascination in a young man’s life turns out to be more than an article of the boy’s adventure and the journey he set out for himself. Krakauer reflects on much larger subjects within the book based on his path while trying to understand Chris McCandless. Chris McCandless, a young man from an East Coast family, abandons everything set for him in his path. Donating twenty-four-thousand-dollar savings account to charity, burning the cash he had, leaving his car and possessions behind were all decisions Chris thought were right for him. His confident yet riskful choices led him to an independent life in the wild.
answers, Krakauer develops his own theory that McCandless consciously chose to avoid any human relationship after his separation from his family, so that he could bear, without fully appreciating, the loss of such relationships. For example, Krakauer states that McCandless continued to head north after Ron Franz, an elderly man who treated McCandless as his son, expressed a desire to adopt him. He explains, “McCandless was thrilled to be on his way north…relieved that he had again evaded the impending threat of human intimacy, of friendship, and all the emotional baggage that comes with it. He had fled the catastrophic confines of his family. He’s successfully kept Jane Burres and Wayne Westerberg at arm’s length, flitting out of their lives before anything was expected of him.
Jon Krakauer's Into The WIld glorifies the journey of a young man, Chris McCandless. In efforts to make his life better by living in solitude, McCandless traveled all across America for two years exploring all different places to find a challenging, yet hospitable, place for him to leave. Chris took this step in his life to escape family issues and harassment and successfully lived for two years as Alex McCandless traveling through the West, South, and making his way to the Alaskan wilderness where he unfortunately faced his downfall. In August of 1992 on the Alaskan Stampede trail, Chris died of starvation, and Krakauer tracked his footsteps and journey after three years to understand Chris as person and why he made the decisions he made.
Written by Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild (1996) is non-fiction story that addresses the matters of how to be recognized by humanity and how searching for one’s identity occasionally clashes with being an existent citizen in the society. Chris McCandless left to discover some kind of illumination. Also, he tried to discover his way into the woodlands with very little physical belongings because of the belief that it can make the flight more gratifying. His life-threatening adventure was the hubris that ultimately caused his demise.
In a society where comfort and ease frequently take priority, many people naturally gravitate towards pursuing an easy life. However, in Jon Krakauer's "Into the Wild" and the gripping documentary "Free Solo," the inspiring stories of Chris McCandless and Alex Honnold challenge this conventional mindset. These amazing people show that choosing an examined life characterized by contemplation, self-reflection, and tireless pursuit of personal progress may result in a great sense of dignity and fulfillment. From their experiences, the readers explore the life-changing effects of embracing an examined life, leaving behind temptations of comfort, and embarking on a path toward personal fulfillment and self-actualization. One compelling aspect of
Booker Rodriguez Prompt 3 Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer, is a modern American work of literature that has demonstrated two literary eras that are important and play a role in the book: naturalism and realism. This is shown through Chris McCandless’ adventure of going to the Alaska wilderness. However the book did start off on a morbid and depressing way about how Chris had to face nature. As the book begins, it starts off by saying on how Chris McCandless was found dead by Moose hunters. Chris had left clues and pieces of evidence on how he got there before they finally took his body to the Scientific Crime Laboratory.
The story is about Krakouer going to reach the summit because it was his dream and when he got an offer to climb it for his job he accepted without question then a bunch of people start dying when a massive storm hits. he reaches the bottom with depression and guilt smokes some weed and eventually overcomes most of his depression. Tension is anxiety when confronting an unusual situation. suspense is not knowing what's going to happen next. Jon krakauer creates foreshadowing, pacing, and flashbacks to create suspense and tension Krakouer uses foreshadowing to express the dangers ahead.
But, nature does not exclude humans, human excludes themselves from nature. Within the “mists of [the] chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand and one items to be allowed for”(277). He uses clouds and storms and quicksands to convey that civilized life includes the same negativity included in the connotation of those conditions, but nonetheless, those too are apart of nature. The purpose of utilizing imagery is so evoke images people already have to connect with them on that level to make them understand that they must find a harmony and balance in the world. So, in order to restore order within one’s individual life, one must defy the social norms that distance themselves from nature to find harmony with it.
In his 1995 essay “The Trouble with Wilderness,” William Cronon declares that “the time has come to rethink wilderness” (69). From the practice of agriculture to masculine frontier fantasies, Cronon argues that Americans have historically defined wilderness as an “island,” separate from their polluted urban industrial homes (69). He traces the idea of wilderness throughout American history, asserting that the idea of untouched, pristine wilderness is a harmful fantasy. By idealizing wilderness from a distance, he argues that people justify the destruction of less sublime landscapes and aggravate environmental conflict.
Humans have always had an interest in exploring the unknown. During the age of exploration european conquerors traveled overseas to colonize the New World. Whether for selfish reasons or not there has always been some reason or curiosity to escape the boundaries of society and enter an area that one should not. Jon Krakauer in his book Into the Wild tries to explain why Chris McCandless decided to exit out of a conformed society and find himself in nature. This book explains why humans are attracted to changes in their ways of life, what it provides Chris, and the realistics of nature and everything that must be faced when entering into it.
How are the epigraphs related to the chapter? The two epigraphs Krakauer states in the beginning of chapter fourteen are related because they both provide what McCandless wanted, the desire of wanting something and to see the beauty of life. During the chapter Krakauer provides the last postcard McCandless wrote to Wayne Westerberg which quotes his adventure to Alaska. The first epigraph talks about the want of something more and when it is seen, he pursues it.
Based on a real story, Into the Wild can make us think from different perspectives about what the main character Christopher McCandless did. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer is a dramatic but also remarkable story from a young, newly graduated, college student that escaped for a long wild journey but never came back. As time passes throughout the book, the reader may notice how the main character interacts with society and nature, finally McCandless dies in the wild but even though he was struggling for survival he died happy. Some people never get out of their comfort zone, others are tired of it and retire from their comfort zone to have different experiences in life, some are good enough or some are terrible.
In this extended essay, I want to explore the tensions between accuracy and meaning in literary non-fiction. I have chosen to analyze this matter in Jon Krakauer’s “Into the Wild” published in 1996. The story is about the death of Christopher Johnson McCandless who died in search of meaning in the Alaskan Wilderness. The author combines fictional style to report on the story of McCandless’ life and death based on journalistic research and facts. I would like to compare and contrast the interaction and effects of different text types occurring in the book such as personal diary entries by McCandless, poetry and literary quotes, and official reports written by newspaper agencies.
Nature is easily projected onto, as it allows for a sense of peacefulness and escapism. Due to its ability to evoke an emotional reaction from the masses, many writers have glorified it through various methods, including describing its endless beauty and utilizing it as a symbol for spirituality. Along with authors, artists also show great respect and admiration for nature through paintings of grandiose landscapes. These tributes disseminate a fixed interpretation of the natural world, one full of meaning and other worldly connections. In “Against Nature,” Joyce Carol Oates strips away this guise given to the environment and replaces it with a harsher reality.