Preview

A Walk in the Woods

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1035 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
A Walk in the Woods
Bill Bryson’s “A Walk in the Woods” is a book that epitomizes the struggles that one needs to go through in order to better themselves. This is evident with the main characters. They are two middle aged men named Bryson, a man who resideds in New Hampshire and Katz, Bryson’s overweight alcoholic college friend from Iowa. When he thought of someone to accompany him, a grumpy college friend named Katz came to mind. As they started off, Bryson started off with the goal that the trail was only being hiked as a way to see the grand nation of America, but it lead to so much more as it uncovered many important topics. This is true because the trail was filled with adventure in discovering America’s heartland and realizing their own personal problems. Through this, the men conquered many areas of their life that they were not strong in before including fitness, cooperation with others and finally, specifically, Katz addressing his personal issues. Therefore, even though they didn’t complete the entire trail, which was the original goal, they achieved something else that is more important, conquering their personal flaws, thus making this trip a complete, utter success.
On the trip the ambitious men took on this huge task, they realized it was going to be a challenge, but did not fully realize that it was a near impossible task for the human body. For example, as the men packed for the strenuous journey, Katz decided to buy many unhealthy treats for the journey. Specifically, this occurred when Katz and Bryson first went to the market before heading out on the hike. Katz picked up snickers, cookies and chips, all of which are not food that people should be eating while their enduring an intense physical task. Furthermore, while they were at the beginning of the trail, they ate noodles which aren’t healthy for hikers who need a lot of energy. However, as time started to go by, the men started eating healthier food and as a result, had more energy to hike more of the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Cited: Bryson, Bill. A Walk in the Woods. Anchor Books. New York: 1998. Print (pages 23,73,78)…

    • 1078 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Henry Gandy Research Paper

    • 1721 Words
    • 7 Pages

    The aging, yet fit, Henry Gandy commenced his morning as usual with a lite breakfast, a steaming mug of strong black coffee, laced with a good dose of boubon whiskey, then a fetch for his hiking stick and an embarkation for the dense woods. This particular morning was singularly thrilling, in that Mr Gandy had just successfully recouperated from a bout of a winter's flu. Thus, having been given the Okay from his personal physician, he had longed for six whole weeks to be back in his rut, and a tramp through his beloved woods along the banks of the ancient Shawnee.…

    • 1721 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “The trails I made led outward into the hills and swamps, but they led inward also...To take the trail and not look back. Whether on foot, on showshoes or by sled, into the summer hills and their late freezing shadows-a high blaze, a runner track in the snow would show where I had gone. Let the rest of mankind fine me if it could”(John Haines, The stars, The snow The Fire In Into The Wild 127). In the novel, Into The Wild,by Jon Krakauer, challenges the slander the protagonist faces. In the book, the protagonist is Chris Mccandless, otherwise known as Alex Supertramp. He was a hero an a noble traveler escaping the fate his parents set out for him; making Mccandless follow his dreams and aspirations for going all around the world and living…

    • 1744 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Bill Bryson Dualism

    • 1312 Words
    • 6 Pages

    A Walk in the Woods essayIn the novel A Walk in the Woods, the author Bill Bryson entertains the reader with a humorous, yet authentically personal account of his expedition along the Appalachian Trail. He carries you along through the beautiful sceneries, endless discomforts, overwhelming joys, and infinite frustrations with an honest commentary, complete only with his colorful splash of impeccable irony. The book, as well as chronicling his individual journey, also educates the reader on various topics ranging from the National Parks Service, to tales of various AT celebrities and obscurities, to the varying aggressiveness of bears according to the particular species. However, out of the many subjects that Bryson discusses, I would mainly…

    • 1312 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Tamaraburgess

    • 455 Words
    • 2 Pages

    "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.... I wanted to live deeply and suck out all the marrow of…

    • 455 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Zachary WilhoitDr. Anna TeekellEnglish 11011 September 2014No one likes the U.S. Forest ServiceBill Bryson’s A Walk In the Woods is a book about Bryson and his partner Katz hiking the Appalachian Trail. In the book, Bryson talks about many controversial issues pertaining to the Appalachian Trail and states his opinion one them. The one that really aggravates him are the jobs that the National Forest Service does, or from Bryson’s point of view don’t do.…

    • 472 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Why I Went To The Woods

    • 497 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The creator of the cartoon uses pathos to exemplify what society is addicted to. The author presents a man injecting himself with various types of “drugs”. The “drugs” in the syringes represent the items that society believes are “essential” to live with. For example, one syringe says a Bigger House. Another syringe says a Sleeker Stereo. In addition to all the syringes on the table and in the background, the facial expression of the man help create an emotion of being overwhelmed and desperate to continue injecting themselves with these essential needs. The image overall represents how society is lost in trying to obtain what the purpose of life is through materialistic needs instead of discovering life through simplicity.…

    • 497 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Archetypes In The Wild

    • 983 Words
    • 4 Pages

    As they would venture further off into the woods it was as if one sudden move would impact their entire life. The question that I repeated to ask myself was how can the forest be that scary in a way that you can’t even take a move without thinking…

    • 983 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A Walk in the Woods

    • 582 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Every book has a certain message it wants to bring to you; whether it’s about greediness, loss, etc. This book, A Walk in the Woods, is about preparation, perseverance, and helping the environment. It’s mostly about the conservation and raising global awareness. It’s about two men who decided to hike the Appalachian Trail and while on it, discovered a lot of things, like the fact that they were both seriously out of shape.…

    • 582 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The short works Reading the River by Mark Twain, and The Way to Rainy Mountain by N. Scott Momaday, are personal tales of moments in the authors lives and how those experiences impacted them spiritually. The central theme of both essays is that of impressing upon the reader to be careful not to take everyday life for granted. Both authors accomplish this mission by relying on examples from nature, but Momaday goes a step farther and incorporates his Native American heritage into the explanation of his world. Twain writes about learning to guide a riverboat down the Mississippi River and to look for tell-tale signs of positive or negative aspects that may affect the journey. He describes how, after so many years of looking for things in or on the river, he has lost the ability to appreciate the beauty of the river itself that others take for granted. Nature is also an important element in the writings of Momaday. He uses lush language to describe the mountains and the plains in order to relay his deep respect of his surroundings. He also describes the oral history of his tribe, the Kiowas, which his grandmother handed down to subsequent generations. When his grandmother died, he realized that she was the last Kiowa who had ties to the history of the tribe and that any tales told from then on would be merely reiterations of her stories, rather than the actual story-telling itself.…

    • 1062 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    I sat there in disbelief, I couldn’t believe my new teacher was forcing me hike a trail and then write a essay about it. But I had to, so I decided to hike the Indian Hill trail, besides I had heard positive reviews about this trail by my friends. The leaves were just turning hues of gold and yellow, I stepped out of the car and was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t freezing cold My mom yelled after me, ‘’Be safe.’’ I ignored her. So I started to hike up the trail it was nice, I usually hiked in the Adirondacks so this was a pleasant change. Hardwoods are different than hiking in the pine forest of the mountains, for one thing on this trail there was only a slight incline where as in the mountains the trails…

    • 486 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Chris, after his death, left behind an strong effect on the people he met, pushing them to themselves not being afraid to go out into the world and find their true self. The author clearly shows this when, after following advice from Chris, 81 years old Ron Franz “moved out of his apartment” and “twenty miles out, toward the Borrego badlands” (59). Krakauer, by choosing to meet with Franz a year after Chris’s death, proves how strong of an impression Chris has made on people, especially on the old man. Franz decided to leave his old life behind and go into the wild, where he can learn even more about himself, because as Chris thought, the wild is the purest place to go back to to test all that you are. Not only did he influence the people he encountered, but also people who read about his quest of self-discovery and decided to do the same themselves, some of them going all the way to the symbolic Stempede Trail bus. Krakauer, having himself been changed by Chris’s story even though he never met him, by including all those interviews after McCandless’ death, illustrates the message he left behind, which is of travelling to learn what you want to be and what you don’t want to be in…

    • 902 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Into The Wild Theme

    • 703 Words
    • 3 Pages

    C.S lewis once said “Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny” In life people experience hardships and ,difficult times much like Chris Mccandless ,between the chaos of it all were supposed to remember who we are,but what if we did not know? Into the wild by Jon Krakauer develops the idea that In order to find ourselves we must lose ourselves.Chris Mccandless had different virtues,he saw recklessness as bravery,believed in adventure and self discovery, And he also strongly believed things held people back from encountering life from every aspect.…

    • 703 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Growing up in rural Kansas was boring. Especially since I grew up in the seventies. There were no cell phones or game systems to occupy my time. My family had an old black and white television set. I loved to watch The Price is Right in the days before Bob Barker’s hair turned white. After the show was over, the only way to kill time was to play outside and wander down to the creek that ran parallel to our property. There was a secret trail buried in the wall of trees that lined our two acre yard. My brother and I would slide down the trail, landing on the dirt banks like explorers on a mission. Sometimes we would hunt for crawdads under rocks. Other times we would take our poles and fish. We never went into the water after the time I got bit by a gar.…

    • 557 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Into The Woods

    • 694 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Before Grimm, before Supernatural, and even before Wicked, there was one “reimagining of classic fairy tales with interwoven plots and grey scale characters” and that was Into the Woods by Stephen Sondheim. Sondheim uses four familiar stories to set the scene for his overarching plot allowing him to concentrate on jokes and creating new relationships between old characters. He also uses familiar characters in ways that blend categories. Through much of act one every character is stock through and through, yet by the end of the play our dashing prince charming has become an unapologetic adulterer, and the wicked old witch becomes an anti-hero. In addition to plot and character Sondheim pays special attention to his musical numbers; just from the first number we understand the characters relationships to one another, their motivations (having children, going to the festival, visiting grandma, and not starving), and we’re introduced to the play’s key metaphor: the woods. While these aspects were vital to the performances success I will be concentrating on the diction and acting.…

    • 694 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics