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Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air

1302 Words6 Pages

In Jon Krakauer’s masterpiece, Into Thin Air, he provides an in-depth explanation of what happened one disastrous day on Mount Everest. While the book is essentially a memoir, it incorporates the excitement of an adventure novel, the suspense of a mystery, and the factual detailing of a school textbook. Jon Krakauer doesn’t leave out any experience to the reader; he very carefully explains every detail so anyone can read his book, even those who have never heard of what happened in Spring of 1996 on Mount Everest. The story essentially explores Jon Krakauer’s months of preparation for and climbing of Mount Everest. Krakauer is a newspaper writer for Outside magazine and gets the opportunity to go on the most prestigious and expensive (a whopping $65,000) …show more content…

From Krakauer’s letter to the reader, we have a basic understanding of his immense personal grief as the result of a tragedy on Mount Everest and the reason for writing the book. Then instead of jumping right into the narrative from the very beginning, Krakauer starts in the middle– the time and day when he reached the peak of Mount Everest and returned, and how eight others couldn’t do the same. This interlude first shocked me but also prepared me for what was to come. Most are unaware of what occurs at Mount Everest but this book awakens those who are oblivious, including myself. The book was incredibly informative, starting right from the beginning when the author gives the complete history of those attempting to reach the top of the world. Krakauer obviously well researched this book, which is unsurprising because of his journalist background, but provides for a good read. In fact, the additional elaboration never seemed too much and always made me seem like an omniscient and omnipresent participant. However, Krakauer also manages to make it seem conversational, always explaining his thoughts and opinions in every

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Krakauer describes his attempts at climbing the Devil’s Thumb when he was 23 years old and compares it to McCandless. The credibility it provides is the insight and thoughts that McCandless might have had on his odyssey as a young man finishing his own greatest achievement. To Krakauer, “the Devil’s Thumb was the same as medical school, only different” (Krakauer 150). To McCandless, it is likely his adventure in Alaska was the fulfillment he needed after following his parents’ wish of finishing college. Both Krakauer and McCandless had problems with their father’s falsehood and losing the innocence that they once had.

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In chapters 14 and 15 of Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer becomes more than just an investigator or a narrator, he becomes a character. He tells his story of climbing the Devils Thumb, which exposes the similarities between himself and McCandless. This aids to his understanding of McCandless’s motivations, without ever meeting him, due to the parallels in their personalities and family issues. Chapter 14 is devoted to Krakauer’s story about his youthful love for mountain climbing. At age 23, he plans to do a dangerous climb on the Devil’s Thumb in Alaska alone. “

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80 Words | 1 Pages

When on his dangerous climb, Krakauer is truly convinced that this experience will change his life. Krakauer creates a narrative parallel between himself and Chris. Throughout the book, Krakauer has kept to a journalist point of view. In this chapter, he slightly abandons that perspective and is more up front with his own personal experiences. Because of his sharing of his own into the wild experience, the reader can grow more sympathy towards McCandless and the actions that he

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447 Words | 2 Pages

Throughout the novel, Krakauer uses strategies to demonstrate comparisons between himself and Christopher McCandless. These comparisons effectively show that Chris was sane enough to make his own decisions regarding Alaska. One of the reasons why Krakauer wrote this book was because he experienced a natural liking for McCandless. Ever since his initial encounter with McCandless’s story while working at the Outside magazine company, his affinity towards the young adventurer grew by leaps and bounds. This affinity came from the very similar experiences the two were involved in.

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324 Words | 2 Pages

Jon Krakauer has a high amount of respect for Christopher J. McCandless; not only because they have many similarities, but because McCandless searched deep for the meaning of life and did as he pleased. In the book, “Into The Wild,” Krakauer not only tells the story of McCandless, but also of his own life, and how he has been shaped into his own. Krakauer had a deep love for the wild, just as Chris did. Though, the two did not do the same things, they both pursued their passions which made it easier for Krakauer to relate to Chris. Once climbing a mountain, Krakauer had ran into trouble, just as Chris did on his journey.

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326 Words | 2 Pages

Krakauer places himself throughout the story to compare his experiences with McCandless’s. Although he does express his opinion frequently, Krakauer still allows the reader to create their own ruling of the wandering itinerant. Krakauer’s intricate sentence structure gives the reader

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1365 Words | 6 Pages

Born in A Different Life Life on the road is an idealistic way to escape from societal problems. There is no denying that it grants individuals satisfaction by allowing them to fulfill their goals, as well as providing immense freedom and control over one’s life; however, it is a fundamentally illogical path to take due to nature’s malevolence. In Into The Wild, Krakauer writes a biography about a young man named Chris McCandless, in which he illustrates the similarities between himself and McCandless’s overly ambitious journey to accomplish feats in the wilderness. Coinciding with their similarities, they also faced an oppressive father figure at home, which lead the both of them to believe that their journey will provide them an answer to their problems at home. McCandless planned to survive in Alaska by living off the land while Krakauer wanted to be the first one to climb the Devil’s Thumb.

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592 Words | 3 Pages

Once again, we are tasked with writing another QVSR paper. “Find an epigraph that explains Krakauer’s purpose in writing this book”. In the guidelines, however, we received a very interesting thought to dwell on, “What is Krakauer’s purpose in this book?” Initially I was prepared to write this paper, and not even think for a second about why he might have wanted to script this nonfiction book. As you can already tell from my title, I think there is a simply explanation for that.

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1198 Words | 5 Pages

The first plot tracks McCandless’s journey into the wild, while the second tracks the development of reader understanding of McCandless’s and his motivations. Krakauer is the narrator throughout the book as he further elaborates on certain subjects. So the book begins with McCandless making his finally hitchhiking ride and going into the wild. Then follows with the discovery of his deceased body. As the book continues on with the discovery of his truck and other lost belongings.

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116 Words | 1 Pages

Throughout Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, there are many details that help give the reader a deeper, more profound, meaning of the book 's intended purpose. Krakauer is one of the most renowned American writers, publishing many books specifically focused on nature, and people’s struggles with nature. Through much of the book, Krakauer incorporates many literary techniques, such as connotation, diction, ethos, pathos, logos, imagery, and syntax, to help each reader grasp the essence of the book. These aspects are utilized many times throughout each chapter in his book. By using a wide range of literary techniques, Krakauer is able to communicate the events that transpired during the book, in a way that pertains to each

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979 Words | 4 Pages

[his] sights” (152). In his crestfallen tone of “lower”, the narrator illuminates a churning sea of internal conflict: the pull between realism and his dreams for the expedition. That same pull forced Krakauer to face his failure and concede his loss to not disappoint himself further. Similarly, the narrator crafts a feeling of situational irony for his audience, since they know he always expected the best from himself but did not succeed at meeting his expectations. In creating unattainable goals, he

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646 Words | 3 Pages

Krakauer shows evidence of this in chapters 14 and 15 of Into The Wild when he uses these chapters to compare and contrast himself from Chris McCandless. The biographer touches heavily on their common ground, including unfortunate family history. Indeed, throughout later chapters of the book, Krakauer allows his audience a glimpse of what he believes to be true of McCandless and his unfortunate demise, particularly when he states, “When the adventure did indeed prove fatal, this melodramatic declaration fueled considerable speculation that the boy had been bent on suicide from the beginning, that when he walked into the bush, he had no intention of ever walking out again. I’m not so sure, however”(Krakauer 134). Consequently, this writing style is far from unbiased and continues to prove the idea that biographers cannot maintain

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1338 Words | 6 Pages

They follow along with McCandless’s cross country journey of him meeting new people, experiencing the hitchhiking world, and going to new places. They follow him through some of his most troubling times, but also some of his best experiences that helped to build him into the person he was when he passed away in the Alaskan forest. The book and film both use artistic choices and various elements such as the use of McCandless’s journal entries and letters in Krakauer's book, and the use of music and camera movement in Penn's movie adaptation. They use these techniques in order to best emphasize that nature helps one to best connect to their true

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299 Words | 2 Pages

In the article “Anatoli Boukreev (Responds to Krakauer)”, Boukreev argues against author Jon Krakauer and his initial allegations in his article “Into Thin Air”, which was published in the September 1996 issue of Outside Magazine. He claims that he was more than qualified to guide groups of paying clients to summit Mount Everest. This is due to his extensive experience in doing exactly that. For example, he has conquered a grand total of 22 mountains in more than twenty years. He has climbed all 22 of these without the assistance of any sort of supplementary oxygen.

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638 Words | 3 Pages

His journal also holds words of disappointment in his last days. He speaks of his desperate and progressively futile efforts to survive. His journal entries were also published. The new York times published his journal entries which lead to his story being published by Jon KrakAuer. Both men’s journals are the only evidence of their dream being pursued in the wilderness of

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