Oregon Trail History

The prescribed question that I have chosen is Power and Privilege: “How and why is a social group represented in a particular way?”

“The Oregon Trail,” written by Francis Parkman is a description of the experiences traveling into the unknown depths of the American west in 1846. The story is told from the first person point of view of Parkman, a scholar from Boston who embarks on the great expedition of traveling into the west in hopes of studying the lives of the Native Americans. His journey is also one of the first detailed descriptions of the beauty and the bounty of a largely uninhabited North American territory. But one of the most critical elements of the story was Parkman’s encounters and recruitment of members to his band of travelers who ultimately play a major role in the success of the western journey.

With the path riddled in disease and unstable ground, the Oregon Trail was a breeding ground for unfortunate events. On the trail, many did not properly clean themselves. This unhygienic lifestyle led to an increased chance of catching an illness. So much so that, there was conside Since the trail panned for thousands of miles, there was a variety of extreme weather and threatening terrain. On the trail, accidents occurred frequently. The territory had a selection of dangerous weather like “thunderstorms, lethally large hailstones, lightning, tornadoes, and high winds”(OCTA OL). These drastic weather conditions lead to immense wear and tear to the emigrants’ wagons. A common danger that could lead to accidents was the unstability of said wagons. Pioneers would fall off the 11 foot wagons leading to serious injury with the possibility of being run over by one of it’s wheels. Most of the wagons were not durable enough to withstand the trip leading so many travelers carried spare parts , if they could afford them. In these wagons, there were copious amounts of supplies to last the travelers all the way to their locations. These supplies were kept safe and many pioneers worried that Native Americans would steal their goods from them, “but in fact Indian attacks on wagon trains were rare, despite the settlers' fears”(Linge OL). This

Throughout history there has been a constant, man’s desire to experience new things. Two men that come to mind are Chris McCandless and Henry David Thoreau. Both men shared a similar reason for traveling into the wild. The differences in their journey’s that led to McCandless’s death and Thoreau’s success is the preparation and approach to the journey’s. Even though Chris failed on his journey he still was very much like Thoreau wanting to leave society in search for enlightenment. The two men may have had different approaches, but their ideals were very similar.

The Alaskan Bush is one of the hardest places to survive without any assistance, supplies, skills, and little food. Jon Krakauer explains in his biography, Into The Wild, how Christopher McCandless ventured into the Alaskan Bush and ultimately perished due to lack of preparation and hubris. McCandless was an intelligent young man who made a few mistakes but overall Krakauer believed that McCandless was not an ignorant adrenalin junkie who had no respect for the land. Krakauer chose to write this biography because he too had the strong desire to discover and explore as he also ventured into the Alaskan Bush when he was a young man, but he survived unlike McCandless. Krakauer’s argument was convincing because he gives credible evidence that McCandless was not foolish like many critics say he was.

Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer, tells the story of a young man named Christopher McCandless who decided to go and survive in the wilderness of Alaska without correct preparation. McCandless was a man with as transcendentalist-like mindset, an adventurer, an explorer, and a hiker. He migrated away from civilization and society with the goal of living in solitude and living his life to the fullest through nature. The audience was introduced to McCandless’ views towards society through McCandless’ journey through Alaska, and the depressing yet inspiring events that led up to his death. Krakauer creates emotional appeals to connect him with McCandless to credit himself as a writer, as well as to develop the audiences’ feelings of McCandless. Krakauer

In the 2013 online article, “The Chris McCandless Obsession Problem”, author Diana Saverin describes the Alaskan wilderness travel phenomenon along with attempting to uncover the ‘McCandless Pilgrims’ “root of motivation. Sparked by the release of both Jon Krakauer’s and Sean Penn’s “Into the Wild”, numerous individuals pack their backpacks and eagerly step into their (sometimes newly-bought) hiking shoes and tramp into the Alaskan Wild to pay homage to their hero Chris McCandless. Filled with personal anecdotes and interviews, Severin’s Outside article takes a new approach Into the Wild commentary by directing attention to the lives McCandless’s story affected indirectly rather than critiquing on McCandless himself. In response to what appears to be a huge amount of troubled McCandless-inspired tramping stories, Saverin provides an unbiased rationale as a attempt to explain why so many are “willing to risk injury, and even death, to..visit the last home of Alaska’s most famous adventure casualty”.

The emigrants on the trail looked for a new life in America. Some emigrants went looking for religious freedom, others went for land and power. They were not prepared for the dangers and difficulties that the trail presented. The emigrants on the oregon trail faced the most difficulty trying to survive and thrive in the west because of disease, accidents, and weather.

“The Way to Rainy Mountain” is organized very well, it includes three narrative voices. Throughout this novel the first narrative voice is about the Kiowa legends. Then Momaday has a paragraph of contexts that relates to the legend. The author gives the reader a bit of his life by relating a family experience he had. Because some of the Kiowa legends and history go with Momadays own family history, then this three voice narration allows the author to have great detail about the Kiowa’s way of life in every way.

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.

The most noticeable part of the frontier myth is the mythic struggle between modern civilization and wilderness. Frontier is defined as “the meeting point between savagery and civilization”. Turner believes that the American frontier is closely related to American civilization and that frontier

In the novel of the Call of the Wild, Buck tried to adapt to his new and difficult life. He was forced to help the men find gold; he experienced a big transformation in him. At the end, he transformed into a new and different dog. Buck went through physical, mental and environmental changes. In my essay, I talked about how Buck was like at the beginning, what he changed into, and how he was forced to adapt his new environment, and underwent these changes.

I read the book ” The Moccasin Trail”, this book is mostly about a man named Jim Heath. Jim is a man who shortly after leaving his family behind to go be himself was severely attacked by a grizzly bear. Shortly after the attack a group of Crow Indians found Jim who was half alive and took him to their Tribe and took care of him until he was better. Ever since Jim got better he joined the Crow Indians tribe and become one himself. One day, after six years of living with the Crow Indians Jim received a letter from his sister saying that they( as in his two younger brothers, sister, and little nephew) were backing up all their stuff and moving out west to Oregon territory in search for

There is always that one person that makes a story so interesting and impossible to get one's eyes off of. The novel, Montana 1948 by Larry Watson was a book that had good, bad and terrible things in it. A family that was well known to the town of Bentrock was involved with multiple incidents that brought negativity to the people. It was a town diversified between Indian and Caucasians. People that were influential to the novel made bad choices, caused and solved problems and also led to serious moments that others couldn’t see meaning and truth behind. Doing what is right vs. wrong often causes struggles within other people.

St. Francis of Assisi was a man who sought peace from the world and tried to bring