Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild investigates the life and adventures of Chris McCandless. The author provides information about Chris’ life to illuminate his journey. Krakauer also uses rhetorical appeals to defend Chris’ rationale for his journey. Through Krakauer’s use of pathos, ethos, and logos, he persuades the audience that Chris is not foolish; however, Krakauer’s intimacy with Chris and his adventures inhibits his objectivity.
(R) This passage illustrates a man who wants to change and start a new life by becoming a new person. This is very important as we learn that Chris McCandles is a dynamic character, and he wants to change from the type of person he was at the beginning of the book. Even when Chris McCandless had “adopted a new name”, it had symbolized that he was transforming into a new person that was now known as “Alexander Super-tramp, master of his own destiny”. I feel like he wanted to change his identity mainly because I think that his old personality traits would be linked to his old name,Chris McCandless, and whenever someone would call that name, he would start to transform to those personality traits. So to prevent this from happening, Chris McCandless changed his name to Alexander to resemble a new person that have better personality traits and a better person at life in
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer is a biography that follows Chris McCandless and his journey through the wilderness while finding himself along the way. Chris McCandless died in the August of 1992 after a four month journey through places like Mexico and Alaska. Krakauer investigates his actions and analyzes his identity after his death, trying to find meaning within his seemingly unnecessary expedition. Chris McCandless constructs his personal identity as a man who wanted to be challenged and inspired by his actions and interests with people he met on the road, and his beliefs and values as a stubborn person.
“If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be.” ―Maya Angelou. Jon Krakauer’s true story titled Into the Wild is about a man who decides to throw away his old life and escape the rules of conventional society. Twenty-two-year-old Chris McCandless came from a well-to-do family in Virginia and, without warning, abandons everything. He changes his name, loses contact with his family, gives away his car and all his money, and begins a two-year long journey hitchhiking to Alaska where he eventually dies of starvation. Although it may seem as though Chris McCandless is immature or reckless, he is actually rather admirable for his ideals because they allow him to live a life he is happy with.
The environment in which an individual grows up in can affect life greatly. Our surroundings influence one’s personality, self-expression, and individuality, otherwise known as identity. Finding one’s true self is the most grueling stage of life and expectations of family and society make the process even harder. One’s true identity can sometimes clash with hopes of others, thus breaking tradition and/or family ties. Pressure to change will always be present, but staying true to uniqueness will prevail.
Into The Wild is written in both the 1st person, when the author is giving his own opinion or giving credibility, and in the 3rd person, when the author or anyone being quoted is talking about Chris McCandless. The effect Krakauer achieves is the notion of how isolated individuals exist in a state of wilderness and establishing his credibility. Krakauer personally connects with McCandless and explores every aspect of his life to discover the real truth of his death, and is convinced he did not die from starvation. He becomes emotionally attached to Chris and even develops a strong relationship with his parents. As a result, this effect leads to his writing being slightly biased. In analyzing Chris McCandless in the book, we are able to delve
Into The Wild portrays a man who went on a fatal unforgettable journey through the alaska wilderness. Chris McCandless was a man with great courage and the ability to live on his own made him more of a hero going on his fatal journey. Many would say he was foolish or not thinking right, but that is not the case. The case here is simply a man with courage wanting to fulfill is beliefs through his journey.
Different people have different goals. Everyone wants to achieve something, whether it’s becoming a surgeon or graduating high school. In the book Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, for Chris McCandless it was out of the ordinary. McCandless wanted to go out into the wild alone with nothing besides a few general needs. Some of those needs consisted of a journal, a camera, a large bag of rice, a small cooking utensil, matches, a knife, and some fishing twine with a hook. Most people would think that’s a suicide wish to just go out in the wild, others just thinking it was crazy and wondering who his parents are. Then there are people that find him as an inspiration for going after his goal. McCandless thought it was finally a chance to go on his own and see what’s out in the world. People think that since McCandless died out in the wilderness , he didn’t accomplish his goal. McCandless on the other hand felt the complete opposite. He achieved his goal of seeing parts of Alaska that most people would dream of doing but wouldn’t actually conquer it because they are too scared of what might be out there.
I am in agreement with Krakauer on the fact that Chris McCandless was not a sociopath
From time to time, people think they know everything to know. People who think they know everything and do everything their own way are very prideful. Pride is a tricky thing because it can lead to failure or even the loss of something valuable like family and sometimes even life. In Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, the main character Chris McCandless takes great pride in doing things in his own way and not caring if he takes people out of his life forever.
Every person in this world has dreams and reasons to live. They live with a goal that they want to achieve sometime in their lives. It may be as simple as wanting to rest at the end of the day or beating the world’s record and becoming popular. There are a few people that are similar to Chris McCandles and Everett Ruess that is willing to give up everything they have in exchange for their dream. McCandles and Ruess both represent freedom, adventure and romanticism for they lived their lives pursuing their dreams with a strong mindset that encouraged them to be one with the nature and away from everyone else. They both lived appreciating the beauty of nature and chose to take the challenges and live independently with freedom in their hands.
St. Francis of Assisi was a man who sought peace from the world and tried to bring
Identity speaks of who we are as individuals but it also comes from two different groups: social and cultural. These groups are connected to power, values and ideology. Social identities are related to how we interact with people and how we present ourselves. Meanwhile cultural identities relate to society in whole such as religion, values, etc. In this paper I will talk about the dominant and subordinate identities. These identities are one of the biggest challenges people in our society face in their lives. They not only affect ones social life but also their daily interactions. I will also discuss two examples that support this statement, one of them being from the reading of “The complexity of identity” by Daniel Tatum.
People always suggest others to be themselves. To not care about what others have to say about you. People try to ignore society 's opinion about them, not realizing the importance it plays in identity. For a person to feel identified, they must have similarities or differences, and some type of involvement. Identity involves a combination of how you see yourself and how others see you. How others see you is influenced by material, social, and physical constraints. This causes a tension between how much control you have in constructing your own identity and how much control or constraint is exercised over you. How we see ourselves and how others see us differ in many ways, but is an important factor of our identity. “A Lesson Before Dying”,
Chris McCandless abandoned the modern world and chose the wild because he believed that he could improve himself through living in the wild, and found the true happiness of the life. McCandless abandoned his wealthy family because of his complicated relationship with his father, and he was ashamed with his father’s adultery. Therefore, McCandless believed that human relationship was not the only thing that forms happiness, instead a man’s connection with the nature brings joy as well. He also believed the habitual lifestyle was not what people were meant to do, and people shouldn't have more possessions than what they need. For this reason, McCandless traveled with little effects. In addition, McCandless thought he could found the solution to his frustration with the adultery of his father, and found the true happiness for his life through escaping into the wild.