The two had a closer relationship than the average brother and sister, due to their fathers’ random outbursts of rage. Most people would have attempted an escape under those unbearable conditions. Once Chris made it to Alaska he was immersed in nature and everything pure that he set out to find. This simple contentment is not insanity, but human desire for belonging. Although some have criticized Chris for not informing his family of his plans, it is understandable why he didn’t.
As a reader you often forget that this is a true story; yet as powerful as it is you do not laugh or cry like you might with another book. Krakauer is not telling a story; he is reporting Chris’ journey. A strong passage that provides Chris’ perspective is found in one of his letters sent as “Alex”. In this letter that he sent to Ron Franz, the fellow adventurer who drove Chris from California to South Dakota, Alex writes, “So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they’re conditioned to a life of security, comfort and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future.” (57) Franz receives this letter in April of 1992; it is clear that he is excited to be on his quest for a simple, happier life. His definition of happiness is what he is pursuing.
Similarly to Jan Burres thoughts on McCandless expedition, Westerberg did not agree with most of McCandless’ ideas, such as traveling to Alaska and leaving his parents, but he admired McCandless passion toward reaching his goal. Westerberg said to Chris during the conversation, “You're a young guy! You can't be juggling blood and fire all the
He says, that as a consequence of the way he was raised he is "inclined to reserve all judgments" about other people (page 5). His saying this makes it seem like we can trust him to give a fair unbiased account of the story that he is telling, but we later learn that he does not reserve all judgments. Nick further makes us feel that he is a non-partisan narrator by the way he tells of his past. We come to see that Nick is very partial in his way of telling the story. This is shown when he admits early in the story that he does not judge Gatsby because Gatsby had an "extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness".
The people who believed Chris to be a “loopy young man who…lacked even a modicum of common sense” (184) didn’t understand his intention. He wasn’t trying to get himself killed in the Alaska brush, he just wanted to live off the essentials and go back to basics. He was very intelligent which makes it hard to believe he was crazy or just dumb. He was living by the words of Emerson and Thoreau where he could be “emancipated from…a world of abstraction” (22) and live in solitude. He followed “his genius until it misled him”
First the author shows the theme by integrating character’s actions throughout the story. Before Charlie becomes intelligent he wrote, “I want to be smart.” (Pg. 221) I think this quote confirms the theme because since he wasn’t smart he could have separated himself from smart people. As Charlie was reading a book called Robinson Crusoe he wrote, “I feel sorry because he’s all alone and has no friends.” (Pg. 229) I believe this quote reveals the moral because as he reads this book he find out Crusoe is all alone and isolated and even though Charlie doesn’t realize it yet he himself is isolated and lonely as well.
Christopher Johnson McCandless After his body’s discovery in the Alaskan wilderness, Jon Krakauer wrote a short article for Outsider magazine about Chris McCandless and how he ended up in Alaska. The story remained with him though and he eventually revisited the story, eager to defend Chris from those that sought to speak negatively of him. A great deal of people have spoken out angrily against Chris and his foolish youth who threw away his advantages in life and died in the wild. Krakauer tries to draw out the similarities between the brash youth of most people and McCandless’s odd decisions. McCandless himself is a young and successful college graduate with a good job and money in the bank who one day decides to up and disappear in response
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer is a compelling story of Chris McCandless going out into the wild to find truth in himself and all around, as he does not find peace and love in his own family. Chris had long dreamed of leaving onto a journey for himself, so he would no longer be pressured by all that had been around him for all of his childhood, “Don't settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon.”. Here Chris speaks of all to be found in the world, as when we stay and live in one place, time goes without any adventure and excitement, trapped in the society Chris wanted so much to be out of. He was simply searching for what was not available in society.
Eric Severson had to make a decision between the safety of his children over the need of hitchhikers, leaving him feeling torn between responsibilities of family and social needs, he feels some remorse for not being Christ like and helping the hitchhiker, but his family’s safety is primary. Though his decision is not wrong nor right, the majority would probably feel he made the ethically right decision, but in the end this was an easy choice and small choice to make. He may wonder if anyone had stopped to help that hitchhiker, but for many this conflict is negligible, especially for those who do not see the need of the hitchhiker as a responsibility, thus undetectable. “The tearing can be bittersweet” (p. 155). Many people proclaim to want less government and government regulation intrusion in their lives, yet when something goes wrong, such as a housing sub-prime mortgage melt down, people proclaim, “where was the government to protect us?” “Isn’t the government responsible for protecting the citizens?” However, are the executives of those companies
“Superman is me” Reading can be a hobby, a job, or even entertaining pleasure to some, but for Sherman Alexie it was a means of survival. He found this as a tool to forget and dismiss his problems by getting lost in the fluttered words of texts. Whether it was manuals, newspapers, magazines, mail, or books it never really mattered to him. In his renowned writing piece The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman And Me, Alexie demonstrates the beginnings foundation of which dictated his career as a writer as well as the social endeavors the early Native Americans in their Reserve lived under in America. Alexie recalls the moment he picked up a Superman comic book, despite lacking the abilities to read even read at his early age and somehow