Preview

Into The Wild, By Jon Krakauer: A Personal Analysis

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
411 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Into The Wild, By Jon Krakauer: A Personal Analysis
I'm going to begin by telling you my personal philosophy from the perspective of a runaway's family member. Eventually I hope I can change your mind and make you think again about the desicion you made.

I had a brother named Chris McCandless, who thought different from everybody else. He liked being independent and always went in some type of trip to prove it. "The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried." (Emerson). I never told him not to go, because I knew it was what he wanted to do, and it made him happy. "I knew he was happy and doing what he wanted to do; I undestood that it was important for him to see how independent he could be." (Krakauer, 125).
…show more content…
He traveled to Alaska and died there because of the harsh living conditions. "If a plant cannot live according to its nature it dies, and so a man." (Thoreau). He risked his life and lost it doing something he liked, and I'm happy for him living the life that he wanted but sometimes I think of what would of had happened if only my parents, I or something could of had stopped him from going. "My parents can't help wondering- and I admit that I can't either-how things might have turned out different if Chris had taken Buck with him." (Krakauer,

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Jon Krakauer went to the Teklanika River a year and a week after Chris McCandless decided that he was not going to risk crossing the dangerous path. He was there because he wanted to know more about Chris and how he had died in the bus. While the water in the river was not as violent as the day Chris was there, it still was treacherous and dangerous to cross. However, Jon had brought along a map and three friends: Roman Dial, Dan Solie, and Andrew Liske. They walked to a gauging station farther down the river and saw that the basket that hung off a cable was on the other side of the river. Had Chris not gotten rid of his own map long ago, he could have found the basket and crossed the river easily. Jon manages to get across the river by securing rock-climbing gear to the cable, pulling himself over, then ferrying the basket back to collect his companions. Ten miles farther, they come across a melted cluster of messy beaver ponds. The path they were traveling was covered with shrubbery and other plants. While Jon originally was annoyed by his companions inviting themselves along on his trip, now he was…

    • 1300 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The book I read was Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, a book explaining the exciting story of a nineteen year old boy named Chris McCandless. Chris was born into a wealthy family with siblings; Chris later attended Emory where he would already start to isolate himself from others. Isolating himself from others would eventually cause Chris to make a journey he would later regret and not return from. This will show how humans are not meant for isolation and it will not lead into anything helpful and won’t turn out in your favor.…

    • 919 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Into Thin Air, is an autobiography written by Jon Krakauer about an Everest disaster that he experienced first-hand while climbing the mountain in May of 1996. One theme that the author incorporates throughout the book is that climbing costs everything. He explains that climbing Mount Everest costs a lot of money. For some people, mountaineering costs their lives, limbs, and their family to pursue this passion. Krakauer uses a chronological text structure to describe the events of the fateful hike. The author was commissioned by Outside Magazine to write an article about Mount Everest. Originally, he was not supposed to ascend Mount Everest, but he decided that spending two months at Base Camp would be very mundane and monotonous. So, the magazine…

    • 1947 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Christopher McCandless or Alexander Supertramp should be admired for his courage and noble idea to drop everything and go into the wild, with nothing but a backpack and in it was a book of Tolstoy, a book about native plants and berries, a .22 rifle with 400 rounds of ammunition, a writing implement, a journal, a camera, a 10 pound bag of rice, a small cooking utensil, matches, a knife, and some fishing twine and a hook, and the few clothes he had on his back. Chris was trying to find himself by leaving everything behind, yes Chris might have been a little reckless but you have to be a little reckless to go into the wild and hitchhike around the world. This quote support that's chris was just living and trying to find himself was, “...McCandless pitched his tent in the puny shade of a tamarick and basked in his newfound freedom. (Krakauer 27)” this is saying that McCandless was happy to finally be by himself and start life in the wild,…

    • 469 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    After he came up dead and his story popped up in the newspaper many people gave their opinion on his decisions. One of the harshest of them said, “amounts of disrespect to the land… just another case of underprepared, over confident men bumbling around out there and screwing up because they lacked the requisite humility” (51). Most of these came from Alaskans who know how harsh the land could be but John Krakauer the author of the book Into The Wild believed otherwise. McCandless wasn’t crazy for what he did, he was just unfamiliar with the area but if he was crazy he wouldn’t have lasted in the wilderness as long as he did. (59)…

    • 613 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jon Krakauer

    • 565 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Jon Krakauer is a climber, author and narrator in this story. He is hired by Outside Magazine to do an article on the commercialization of the mountain. His magazine allow him to climb by making a deal with Adventure Consultants a guiding service that he will be charged 30,000 but they will run an advertisement for Adventure Consultants.…

    • 565 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Every human is influenced by his or her surroundings let it be internal or external, these forces is what shape and develop who we are. Similarly in Jon Kraukauer’s novel “Into the wild” Chris McCandless a man who is offended by the corruption he sees within society decides to change his name, renounces all his material luxuries and go off on his way hitchhiking to Alaska from Washington, DC. He spends approximately 112 days in Alaska, he eventually planned on returning back to civilization one day but does not survive his time in the wilderness. He felt unfulfilled in a life of privilege and material wealth and wanted to experience life, he wanted to live with nothing but the bare requirements of life. Chris wanted to free himself of all worldly things and live freely. Similarly in Timothy Findley’s novel “The wars” Robert Ross who is the main character goes off to War after the death of his sister Rowena, he feels that staying in his current situation would not do him any good so he leaves, throughout his journey he encounters many people and experiences that shape and develop his character. External forces that influenced the development of Chris McCandless & Robert Ross are their families, the strangers they came across and the Wilderness for Chris and war for Robert.…

    • 1816 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Standing at an unfathomable height of 29,029 ft, Mount Everest is the world’s highest Himalayan peak. Adventure junkies and passionate climbers can only dream of such a colossal trek, but when presented with an almost unresistable opportunity, Jon Krakauer couldn't refuse the offer. In his New York Times bestselling novel Into Thin Air, Krakauer shares his personal recount of the incidents that occurred during his journey to the summit of Everest in 1996. Consequent to the publication of both Krakauer’s novel and his article in Outside magazine, multitudes of public opinion, criticism, viewpoints, and questions have been raised. One question that has yet to be put to rest, probably due to the sensitivity and controversy surrounding the topic,…

    • 163 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One of the most controversial man, Christopher Hitchens, in his letters, “Letters to a Young Contrarian” (2001), implies that people of the contemporary society should avoid thinking other than for themselves by taking on the pathway of being a contrarian. His purpose is to help “individuals on how they think, and not what they think by making them a more independent and questioning person” (63). The letters take us through a pathway of what is means to be a contrarian. He uses great personal and current examples to explain why individuals should have a voice for their own. Two of the most important topics in which he heavily discusses about are religion and racism. Throughout…

    • 364 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Into The Wild Essay

    • 819 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The first reason why Krakauer’s argument isn’t justified is because Christopher McCandless made a lot of unwise choices during the duration of his trip. First of all he did not tell any of his family members exactly where it was that he was headed to. Along his journey he did tell a few people that his overall goal was to survive a while in the Tundra, but he wasn’t even specific with them about where exactly it was that he was headed to. Krakauer and other supporters of Krakauer’s argument may say that McCandless telling people where he was headed to wouldn’t have had a big impact on the outcome. But when you look at his situation during his last few weeks alive, he was very ill and couldn’t do very much to take care of himself. So if people knew where he was at there is a chance that they would’ve gone to check up on him and he would have been rescued and would have survived. It wasn’t a very good choice for McCandless to keep his location a secret from…

    • 819 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Happiness is worth more than all the money in the world, even it is worth dying for. In the novel, Into the Wild from 1997, Jon Krakauer reveals a young man’s, Chris McCandless, life risking journey to Alaska where McCandless had planned to rediscover himself: However, this adventure became fatal and throughout the novel Krakauer uses his own life experience and other people’s positive relationship with Chris to defend him from the public, even though Chris was called an idiot because his dream ended his life. Krakauer develops a strong defense for McCandless by using McCandless’ family background, relationships he built along the way, Chris’ struggles, and other explorers with similar experiences to protect him from the negative feedback readers developed by reading Chris’s story . The purpose of this novel is to change the reader's negative opinions towards the article because when it was published readers believed that his purpose was to be a rebellious kid and seek attention from others,…

    • 1022 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jon Krakauer wrote Into Thin Air, which was also featured as an article in the Outside magazine. It was based on his own experiences and observations of the time he attempted and completed the climb of Mount Everest in 1996. Krakauer wanted to share and let everyone know of the whole expedition because he felt it was necessary. The feedback he received from readers was extremely high and it was all positive and negative opinions. The negative feedback was what made Krakauer disturbed, but he did not argue back because they are just opinions like his.…

    • 549 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    All of us have different conflicts in life that we need to defeat, whether it is man vs. man, man vs. society, man vs. self or man vs. nature. We cannot control the outcome of man vs. nature, it presents challenges we are always looking for. If you can beat nature than you are a real survivor and can defeat anything in your path. For this paper, I am going to focus on two films that face the conflict of man vs. nature head on, Sean Penn’s Into the Wild (2007), and Jean-Marc Vallee’s Wild (2014). Jean-Marc Vallee’s female character in Wild detaches the typical stereotype shown in Sean Penn’s Into the Wild that wild stories belong to men and navigates and roots women into the American tradition of man vs. wild stories, leading us to question if people will ever say wild stories belong to men again. Although, similar McCandless and Strayed’s journey’s differ due to their gender, solely because in American culture we have seen men vs. nature, not women. First, I’ll show how McCandless is able to own the adventure film by having the benefit of flowing the path of many men that explored before him; then, I’ll investigative…

    • 487 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Men can appreciate nature for both its beauty and harshness. Even in the inhospitable environment of Mount Everest, a climber can recognize both during his climb to the summit. In Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer records his trip in extreme detail, focusing on both his environment and the events that unfold around him. Krakauer uses several rhetorical devices to express his romanticized yet harsh attitude towards Mt Everest.…

    • 974 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The book Into Thin Air is a documented disaster by climber Jon Krakauer. Published in 1997, Jon wrote about the devastating summit attempt by several different groups. This climb was stopped by a disastrous storm above the death zone killing eight people, including Rob Hall. Rob Hall was Jons respectable leader and a guide who was a very experienced climber bringing 39 climbers to the summit between 1990 to 1995. He was once again trying to keep his business booming by bringing more and more climbers to the summit. This year he was more so under pressure because he had failed to bring one client to the summit last year and he was trying his hardest for that to not happen this year but in that triumphant push he himself, was killed. On that…

    • 880 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays