Ariana Neumann
IB English HL
Mrs Root
3/6/23
Credibility of Krakauer
John Krakauer: the author of Into The Wild uses the strategic placement of pathos, logos and ethos to himself as a stronger writer than Craig Medred: author of the article, Beatification of Chris McCandless. Both authors write about a tramper named Chris McCandlless. He is a free spirit with no desire to conform to society. McCandlless travels to Alaska seeking the truth of life and that ultimately leads to his death. Krakauer has an extensive background on Chris, he finds himself relating to Chris more than Medred. Krakauer is also able to provide first hand accounts of people who have interacted with Chris. John Krakauer uses the rhetorical devices of pathos, logos, and
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Krakauer has more connection to Chris and is able to relate more to him and his actions. He studied profusely on Chris’s life and his interactions with others. The author of the article focused on the negative but in a clear emotional standpoint. Krakauer is a lot less judgemental and more understanding than the article’s author. Krakauer also has an emotional connection towards Chris, opposed to the article's author who dislikes Chris from the beginning. Krakauer uses ethos, pathos and logos to make his point, he shows Chris’s emotions “He’d tell us to think about all the evil in the world, all the hatred and imagine ourselves running against the forces of darkness” (112). Krakauer relates to Chris’s desire to escape society. Krakauer himself went to Alaska to experience the same need for solidarity. “Alaska has long been a magnet for dreamers and misfits, people who think the unsullied enormity of the Last Frontier will patch all the holes in their lives. The bush is an unforgiving place, however, that cares nothing for hope or longing(4). Krakauer uses Alaska to symbolize hopes and dreams. This experience is able to bring him closer to Chris and allow him to judge his
Krakauer writes about how when Chris had a job his boss described
While Krakauer admits to holding a personal bias towards McCandless’s life and story, his statements about McCandless’s emotions and reasoning stems directly from
Kraukers opinion on Chris is what shaped this whole Biography, and is what lead us to learning more then we thought we would need. Krauker uses Retorical strategies like including
By using these strategies, Krakauer was successful in proving his point to the audience as he is able to evoke an empathetic response from the readers, put the story into a perspective that made the audience view the nature and the wilderness in the same way Chris saw it, and allowed them to connect Chris’s story with other people’s stories that have similar aspects to his, and create their own understanding of why Chris did what he did. Krakauer gains knowledge from sources with experience in the wild and knows the ins and outs of living in isolation while in harsh conditions. Krakauer also obtains evidence from first hand sources who knew or had important interactions with McCandless so that he could write this book with enough understanding and information to prove his main idea. Ultimately, Jon Krakauer portrays the idea that Chris McCandless had much deeper internal reasons, than what might be seen from the surface, that explain why he felt the strong compulsion to venture into the wild in complete isolation, away from the constraints he felt in society, to find what he was looking for in
To conclude, Krakauer uses three valuable techniques to capture the meaning behind Into the Wild and McCandless’s journey itself: narrative structure, epigraphs, and tone. Chris McCandless was an intelligent young man who sought adventure far from his dull stable life. He essentially went off the grid to capture what he wished for the most, which was ultimate freedom and happiness. It was like a tag on a shirt that keeps bothering the tenderness of one’s skin. It was the reason why the tag was ripped off.
Throughout the book we establish a rocky relationship between Christopher and his parents. They argue in values, morals, and conduct patterns leading Chris to hold a particular distaste for his father after learning of a cheating scandal in his first marriage. Although we don’t get to learn nearly as much about Krakauer and his familial relationships, one section in particular in Chapter 14 leads me to draw these conclusions. Krakauer declares that the ‘guesses’ he makes regarding Chris’ whereabouts, thoughts, and feelings come from personal experience: “but my sense of Chris McCandless’s intentions comes, too, from a more personal perspective… Like McCandless, figures of male authority aroused in me a confusing medley of corked fury and hunger to please” (Krakauer 134).
In Jon Krakauer’s fiction narrative, Into the Wild, he portrays Chris McCandless as a self-reliant and thoughtless young man. Unfortunately, he sadly passed after a unprepared journey into the Alaskan wilderness. Through a closer examination on his actions and words it reveals he was a deeply appreciative and misunderstood person. McCandless showed his appreciation of the world with his love for nature.. During his travels he took great joy in the beauty of nature and the idea of living with such a gift.
Rhetorical Analysis of Jon Krakauer’s “Into the Wild ” Jon Krakauer ’s purpose in writing Into the Wild is to recount Chris McCandless’ journey, physical and metaphysical, from college in Georgia to his death in Alaska, through the use of factual, and anecdotal evidence. Krakauer uses factual evidence to establish that he is a trustworthy narrator capable of giving the reader a realistic scope on the events in the story. Jon uses anecdotal evidence to see into Chris’ psyche from the various perspectives found in the book’s excerpts, including how Jon understands the events.
Chris was inspired by authors of the transcendentalist type, and writers depicting life in the wild. Krakauer addresses a key point in saying that “he [Chris] seemed to forget they were words of fiction…” (page 36) when referring to fictional books such as Call of the Wild. His obsession with the idealized works of fiction represents Chris’s distracting fantasies that are a defined part of cognitive avoidance. Combining protective avoidance with cognitive avoidance, Chris stays firm in his belief that he is well-prepared enough and knowledgeable enough to survive in Alaska. This belief persists despite multiple warnings made by more experienced individuals, regarding the Alaskan bush.
Krakauer also infers from interviews, knowledge, and experience about Chris which creates his bias. Further, Krauker includes research that defends Chris’
Krakauer demonstrates similarities between Everett and Chris by stating that Everett,
Throughout chapters 8 and 9, the author showed his bias towards Chris McCandless, which is an act of defiance to his position as an objective journalist, when he attempted to alter the readers’ negative point of view towards Chris by the introduction of different people who had similar experiences and characteristics as him and then making comparison. After reading the previous chapters, the readers have already made their own judgement on Chris, which are probably mostly negative. To address this issue, Krakauer initiates chapter 8 by introducing negative comments and mails not only about Chris but also to him, the author. These will serve as an argument that he will later attempt to disprove while at the same time, still informing the readers about what makes Chris special and unique.
Tone: Throughout the novel, Krakauer tone is extremely empathetic because Chris and himself share a relationship within each other. This is done with dialogue to create the culminated tones through the book. Due to this, Krakauer with the support of the use of figurative language gets his points through to the reader . Krakauer states that Chris and himself have a ‘’similar intensity and heedlessness.
As each chapter come’s there is an account from Chris’ diary to accompany it. Along with this is some type of quote/ inspirational passage which lets us in on what is to come in the chapter ahead. Krakauer is able to maintain this structure throughout the whole book and through this we are able to pick apart the journey of Chris McCandless to construct our own opinions about his mysterious persona. The structure Krakauer creates for us in Into the Wild is significant to our understanding of Chris and his journey as it sheds insight onto his life from many different
Krakauer 's Into The Wild presents significant impact on the character of Chris McCandless through the few female voices of the novel, their individual relationships with Chris, and how the relationships are viewed on both ends. Through Billie’s eyes,