Rhetorical Devices In Into The Wild

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

The addition of Jack London’s epilogue from White Fang is the first hint that Chris McCandless did not survive. The excerpt from White Fang states that Alaska was a “desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness…It was masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life”(9). Krakauer chooses to add this passage from Jack London in order to create suspense and mystery. The sense of loneliness and darkness of Alaska the readers receive creates an urgency to keep reading. The second hint the readers attain is a note from Chris, taped onto a bus where “a real bad smell [was coming] from inside” (Krakauer). Chris had written “I NEED YOUR HELP. I AM INJURED, NEAR DEATH, AND TO WEAK…I AM ALL ALONE THIS IS NO JOKE. IN THE NAME OF GOD, PLEASE REMAIN TO SAVE ME” (12). The author adds the note from Chris to create wonder, suspicion, and anticipation within the readers. Krakauer finally reveals Chris McCandless’ death in the end of the second chapter. The owner of an Anchorage auto-body shop named Gordon Samel ““reached through a back [bus] window…there was definitely something in it…it wasn’t until I walked around to the other side and saw a head sticking out that I knew for certain what it was”. Chris McCandless had been dead for two and a half weeks” (13). Krakauer decides to utilize foreshadowing in order to create dramatic tension and also to convey information that helps readers better understand specific events [leading up to Chris’ death] that occur later on in the