Character Analysis: Into Thin Air

Undertaking Everest If you were given a chance to climb Mount Everest would you take it? Few people are brave enough to endeavor on this journey, Jon Krakauer, being one of them. In “Into Thin Air”, Jon Krakauer retells his journey of climbing Mount Everest and how that experience changed his life. Krakauer effectively applies cultural, physical, and geographical surroundings to show how this expedition affected him negatively and positively.

In this book, Krakauer revealed what it was like to work with the Sherpas, who had climbed Everest their whole lives. He describes their views on why some climbers die trying to climb this mountain. He retells, “They believed that one of the climbers on Fischer’s team had angered Everest– Sagarmatha,

Toward the beginning of his expedition, Jon had to spend one day in Lobuje to acclimate to the environment. He explains how they would burn feces to keep warm but the fumes from that caused his condition to worsen. “By morning my eyes were burning and bloodshot, my nostrils were clogged with black soot, and I’d developed a dry, persistent hack that would stay with me until the end of the expedition” (Krakauer 54). The cough that he developed ailed him for the rest of his life and began to weaken his lungs. This exposure cost him his health and he would never be the same after inhaling those toxic fumes. While at Camp Three Jon Krakauer was instructed to use an oxygen mask when sleeping to strengthen his body. “Brain cells were dying. Or blood was growing dangerously thick and sludgelike. Capillaries in our retinas were spontaneously hemorrhaging. Even at rest our hearts beat at a furious rate” (Krakauer 161). The altitude was making everything difficult, even when sleeping your body is not fully able to rest. As a result, Krakauer was constantly exhausted and unable to make good decisions. Jon Krakauer gave many examples of how Mount Everest negatively affected his physical condition which shows how debilitating climbing this mountain