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Compare And Contrast Mccandless And The Transcendentalists

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AI or artificial intelligence is not a modern concept, but rather a field of research that dates back to the mid-twentieth century. More recently though, privately owned Open AI has created a chatbot that uses artificial intelligence to respond to human formed questions. Gaining a public interest, Chat GPT satisfactorily passed a UPENN Wharton Business Exam, ranking notable scores in the English section, but unsatisfactory levels in the math section. When tasked with comparing the principles of the transcendentalists with Christopher Mccandless from Into the Wild, GPT produces an unsatisfactory essay. Although Chat GPT compares the transcendentalist lifestyle of Christopher Mccandless and the Transcendentalists logically, many of the arguments …show more content…

In the process of comparing the two, GPT’s writing style undermines many grammatical rules. Chat GPT logically compares Chris Mccandless and two of the most well known transcendentalists, Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, in a way that allows both of their philosophies to be analyzed. Specifically, GPT introduces Thoreau and Emerson’s most famous works, "Civil Disobedience" and "Nature.” By citing these transcendentalist pieces, GPT does well at comparing many of their philosophies with Chris’ similar moral code. While comparing the two, GPT talks about how Thoreau believes men differ from one another “perhaps it is because [they] hear a different drummer” (Thoreau Civil Disobedience). Chat GPT fails to explicate this quote fully, but it does immediately compare this work with Mccandless’ “rejection of social norms” and “determination to forge his own path” (Chat GPT). The comparison of Thoreu’s work and Mccandless’ social nonconformity is one that makes sense; however, Chat GPT could improve its comparison by using specific examples of Mccandless’ nonconformity like his desire for hitchhiking around the country. In addition to the comparison of the transcendentalists’ work and Mccandless’ values, Chat GPT does well at explaining the medium between living out a …show more content…

Chat GPT describes the moderation between believing in transcendentalist ideals and the more extreme end of living out these ideas in the wilderness, disregarding one’s own life in the process. Chat GPT fails, however, to present how much more extreme Mccandless was than the transcendentalists in terms of living off of these principles. In Walden, Thoreau talks about his adventure in a cabin, theoretically enduring some of the similar struggles as Mccandless. When the time came, Thoreau decided to “[leave] the woods for as good a reason as [he] went there” because he had “several more lives to live” (137). From this passage, it is clear that Thoreau can differentiate peacefulness and extremity, a difference that Mccandless fails to make, and Chat GPT fails to highlight. Thoreau’s goal of living in a cabin allowed him to forget the materialistic things in life, similar to Mccandless. Thoreau's ability to recognize the life he still had to live recognizes his regard for life. In contrast, Mccandless does not think about leaving the woods until it is far too late. This argument is one of the most important in comparing the transcendentalists and Mccandless, but it is left out completely. This is not the only argument Chat GPT leaves out from its essay though. In its essay, Chat GPT does

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Chris McCandless and Henry David Thoreau were two very similar, yet very different men. Thoreau and McCandless both went into nature to experience what living off the land would be like. Chris McCandless once wrote in a letter to Ron Franz, “The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun” (Krakauer 57).

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Jon Krakauer, Chris McCandless, and Henry David Thoreau reveal the philosophy of Transcendentalism. After reading Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer and Henry David Thoreau’s excerpts from Walden, readers see that Transcendentalism plays an important role in Chris McCandless’s and Henry Thoreau’s lives. Chris McCandless and Henry Thoreau have similar beliefs in Transcendentalism. Both men adopt deliberation, individualism, and self-wisdom. Chris McCandless adopts deliberation as a way of life.

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In the short story, “Death of an Innocent” by Jon Krakauer, Chris McCandless travels into the Alaskan wilderness with the intention of relying completely on himself. In the true spirit of transcendentalism, McCandless travels to escape the bounds of society and to remove himself from a materialistic world. Many argue, however, that Chris McCandless was not a transcendentalist because he travels to exotic lands as a means of avoidance, but actually, Chris McCandless is the epitome of a transcendentalist. Transcendentalists, however, rely on themselves and nature to survive and do not depend on material items. Transcendentalists romanticize individualism and believe that intuition is the best guide through life.

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Chris McCandless, the young man who left everything he knew to venture into the wild. The core reason why McCandless traveled out into the wild was to escape the stifling world of his parents and peers. Instead of following the commonly accepted road to success he chose to do things his own way, and find his own happiness out in the world around him. Chris McCandless does not meet the definition of a Transcendentalist because he is running away from his problems, rather than feeling the need to belong in nature. Chris had always had problems with his parents, at one point he even writes to his sister saying ”I’m going to let them think they are right, I’m going to let them think that I’m “coming around to see their side of things” and that

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In the chapter titled Where I Lived, and What I Lived For from Henry David Thoreau’s novel Walden, the author utilizes rhetorical strategies such as imagery and tone to convey how the distractions that accompany a progressing civilization corrupts society. Since he is a transcendentalist, his argument encapsulates the same principles of becoming free from the binds of society and seeking harmony with nature. He emphasizes those ideals when he states that “[he] went to the woods because he wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if [he] could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when [he] came to die, discover that [he] had not lived”(276). In other words, he wanted to escape from society and live

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"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.”- Henry David Thoreau. Transcendentalism is an American philosophy that revolves around self-reliance and independence, commonly in nature, a Transcendentalist wants to find the true meaning in life. I believe that Chris McCandless was a Transcendentalist because he was able to leave his whole life behind and take on a minimalist lifestyle while having a strong relationship with god. However, I believe that I am not a Transcendentalist, but simply an adventurer.

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This is one characteristic of McCandless that made him a transcendentalist. He made his decisions based on his own intuition. He thought for himself and never questioned what he believed was the right thing to do. McCandless was a traveler of not only the wilderness, but of his own soul. He did this to find

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Henry David Thoreau is known as one of the most relevant transcendentalist authors in America, not only thanks to his work as an author but also his ideology and activism as a normal individual. His transcendentalist way of both thinking and living was not only influenced by the fact that he lived in Concord, the cradle of transcendentalism in the US, but also by being in close touch with other great transcendentalists such as Bronson Alcott or Ralph Waldo Emerson. The latter one was probably the most influential on Thoreau’s development as a true transcendentalist, since Thoreau actually put into practice Emerson’s thought that in order to get to know who oneself truly is, you have to focus on Nature and devote yourself to it; and he captured his experience in the wonderfully descriptive and spiritual book Walden. Thoreau’s approach to transcendentalism, as compared to other authors and thinkers

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In “The Old Manse,” Nathaniel Hawthorne criticizes Emerson and the Transcendentalists, rendering the entire movement dispensable. Hawthorne writes, “Never was a poor little country village infested with such a variety of queer, strangely dressed, oddly behaved mortals, most of whom took upon themselves to be important agents of the world’s destiny,” showing his general dislike for the Emerson and his followers. Using words such as “infested” and “queer” that typically occupy a negative connotation and are not words of admiration, Hawthorne demonstrates this dislike through, for all intensive purposes, calling the Transcendentalists odd and peculiar. Additionally, Hawthorne writes, “Such, I imagine, is the invariable character of persons who crowd so closely about an original thinker...and thus become imbued with a false originality,” exhibiting how he views the Transcendentalist movement as a group of people who, following “an original thinker” or Emerson, gain false and unoriginal ideas.

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Thoreau made the decision to live alone for two years in the woods in a small cabin that he had constructed. yet he was also known for many other contributions that he made. As said by the editors of Biography.com, “He [Thoreau] also became known for his beliefs in Transcendentalism and civil disobedience, and was a dedicated abolitionist.” Through his work, Thoreau expresses a very distinct view of nature which can be both similar to and different from contemporary views today. In his text, Walden, Thoreau shows several views which are both agreed with and contested in today's society, these include agreeing that nature can teach us,

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As evident by this quotation by Thoreau, his motives purely consist of living in the idealistic states of nature rather than that of “civilization”. Thoreau also stated, “I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life…”- (taken from Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden”). Thoreau, in this statement shows that he is completely self reliant in the sense that he alone went out to nature to reap what he could and survive by his merits alone, sustaining himself only on what nature had to offer. While conversely McCandless could only survive with a

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Transcendentalism was very different than the Puritan beliefs and their way of seeing things. Thoreau saw that people were becoming too focused on their own life and didn’t notice the world around. In order to overcome, he chose to give up a lot in his life to dedicate himself to this. When Thoreau chose

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Henry David Thoreau, a lifetime resident of Concord, Massachusetts and a huge supporter of Transcendentalism has influenced countless lives due to his works of literature and his Transcendentalist values. His growing impact has been reached across the globe, and his writing has allowed Americans to create a style that was individual to themselves, though some of his writing contradicts this idea. Thoreau is a fault for putting numerous examples of Greek and Roman Mythology in his writing, and this directly goes against what the Transcendentalists wanted for themselves. Thoreau incorporated European values and ideas in his work, and these things should have been left back in Europe for the betterment of the American culture. As the main figure

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Thoreau saw the complexities of life all around and realized that Life itself was not complicated, rather it was mankind’s ever changing “civilization” that had made life so “complex.” As a result, he noticed that to realize what Life really is, he must go out into the real world and experience it himself. This is a feat not possible within regular human society; therefore, Thoreau did the only thing that he believed would truly bring him one with nature, he left human civilization to be in the center of life itself. He moved into the woods so that he may finally define what is life, by experiencing it in all of its raw

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In Transcendentalist thought the self centers itself in reality; every object external produces of the self that takes its reality from our inner selves. Self-reliance thus refers to the way the natural world and humankind rely on oneself to exist. Thoreau supports the transcendentalist ideal of living simply throughout his essay, Walden. The ideals of transcendentalism refer to the thought of living simply by omitting all of the unnecessary items that are not essential to our survival.

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