Cronon does not have a problem with protecting wild places; he has a problem with the way that we use this place as modern society. Instead of viewing wilderness as remote and massive, we need to focus on the wilderness and nature as our own backyard. Our current idea of wilderness “teaches us to be dismissive, or even contemptuous of such humble places and experiences.” (Cronon Pg 23) There is nothing different between the backyard tree, a mountaintop and the tree next door except the way we look at them. The power that wilderness has is to remind us that “By seeing the otherness in that which is most unfamiliar, we can learn to see it too in that which at first seemed merely ordinary. If wilderness can do this – if it can help us perceive
Nature Is Real Life Society could stress us with fake desires but, “In the woods, we return to reason and faith.” (Emerson 243) In the book, Into the Wild, John Krakauer documents Chris McCandless, fighting to find truth in the nature away from society. Ralph Waldo Emerson's views of finding truth in nature include leaving society, noticing life around yourself, and understanding that nature is filled with truth. Chris McCandless is driven by the transcendentalist ideal of finding self-truth in nature.
Almost everyone can identify with the desire to travel entirely alone into the woods, away from the poisonous routine and materialism of daily life, and into an environment where your passion determines life or death. This was the reality for Christopher McCandless and Jon Krakauer.
In Into the Wild, Chris McCandless serves as an example of what rediscovering the frontier can give us as he undertakes both a symbolic and physical frontier. He is proof of the adventurous spirit buried deep within every American, that draws them into the frontier, and into the wild. Taking the first step into the unknown is the most taxing step of the journey, which is why Jon Krakauer frequently returns to the end of Chris’s college experience, which is when he begins the first steps toward the frontier. Chris sees hope in an endlessly changing life. He sees adventure and new experiences where others might see danger and peril.
Hours slide by like minutes. The accumulated clutter of day-to-day existence-- the lapses of consciousness, the unpaid bills, the bungled opportunities , the dust under the couch, the inescapable prison of your genes-- all of it is temporarily forgotten, crowded from your thoughts by an overpowering clarity of purpose and by the seriousness of the task at hand.” (142-143) The wilderness was perfect for McCandless; it gave him the peace of mind he needed to think clearly and gave him something to appreciate in
Jon Krakauer, in the book “Into the Wild” argues that Chris Mccandless isolated himself from society in order to gain a sense of self in nature. Krakauer supports his argument by explaining how Chris struggled with many aspects of belonging in society so he looked to isolation and challenge to find himself. The author’s purpose is to persuade a general audience including groups interested in nature in order to prove that Chris had a valid reason to walk into the wild. The author's purpose is to convince a general audience including outdoor experts and avid nature adventurers that escaping the constraints of society into the wilderness was the best option for Chris McCandless. The author writes in an empathetic tone for his general audience,
Have you ever wondered what it is like to live in the wild, and become a whole new person, or what it is like to live in the wild to find yourself? Well if you have then I recommend that you read the book titled ¨Into the wild¨ written by Jon Krakauer. In this book there is a man named Chris McCandless who left society and went into the wilderness of Alaska and cut off all contact with the outside world. He wanted to find himself, and become a better person. Some may believe that Chris went into the wild to escape a toxic relationship with his parents, but the real reason he left everything was he wanted to find himself, and he felt as if he could function without everyday things.
John Muir was naturalist, author, philosopher, and a great advocate for preservation in which he took interest in since he was very young. Later in his life, he wrote many letters, essays, and books telling of his adventures in nature which were read by millions. His most powerful quote consisted of few words, “Climb the mountain and get their good tidings, Nature’s peace will flow into you as the sunshine into the trees Although both Gifford Pinchot and John Muir sought the need of nature in humanity, their views greatly differed. Pinchot saw conservation as a means of managing the nation’s natural resources for long-term sustainable commercial use. On the other hand, Muir sided more with preserving the land than conserving (Muir, John).
Is The Wilderness really only a place outside the bounds of “civilization”? William Cronon describes The Wilderness as many Americans in his day
The perception of wilderness can be problematic. One of the most prominent points that Cronon made in his evaluation is the ideology that wilderness is an illusion to escape reality. This perception can be ambiguous because it segregates humanity from nature, by establishing the idea that wilderness is separate from everyday life. Also, Cronon calls attention to the issue of dividing the land and calling it wilderness. The issue of this isolation is that it disintegrates humans and nature, rather than bringing them more in unity.
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.
The Grand Canyon is a remarkably interesting and beautiful place, as Walker Percy refers to in his essay “The Loss of Creature”. How can sightseers hold the same “value P” if they possess “the symbolic complex which has already been formed in the sightseer’s mind” (Percy1)? In his essay, Percy discusses his theory that humans aren’t getting the full value of life because they live off of preconceptions and expectations. Percy provides the reader with a number of examples to help illustrate his point in which he believes to be “The Loss of Creature”. The descriptions of the couple on vacation in Mexico and the difference between the Falkland Islander and the student at Scarsdale High School are two of his more interesting examples.
“So many people live in unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation” (57). Chris McCandless was determined to not be one of those men, he strived for a life in solitude, away from the demands of society. For that reason he went on an epic transcendental experience that took him from Mexico to Alaska. Along the way, he met and made an impact on peoples’ lives, people like Wayne Westenberg and Ronald Franz. Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild discusses Chris’s journey, and makes the reader question Chris’s reasons for going out into the wild.
His experiences as a child in the car with no distractions influenced his mind to grow strong and healthy. As a child, he would draw on the fogged glass and count cows and telephone poles. He believes this helped him appreciate what he saw on long car trips instead of being preoccupied and completely missing those things. Being able to appreciate beautiful nature grows the visionary area of the mind, which is much needed, especially in children. Richard Louv’s rhetorical devices in his essay, Last Child in the Woods, efficiently get his points across.
The frontier ideology is defined as an allure of nature that is culturally spread and shaped by people’s ideals of how the wilderness should truly be. The problematic effects resulted by McCandless’ journey into the undomesticated land of Alaska are analogous to the quandaries that the frontier ideology creates for our environmental. Just as the ideology is embedded in his mind; it is also embedded in the minds of many others. However, McCandless story can actually teach us about the plights with our culture and in doing so, allows us to move forward. This has turned into a myth in which many believe that the most important parts of nature are areas that have been untouched by human hands.