In the 2013 online article, “The Chris McCandless Obsession Problem”, author Diana Saverin describes the Alaskan wilderness travel phenomenon along with attempting to uncover the ‘McCandless Pilgrims’ “root of motivation. Sparked by the release of both Jon Krakauer’s and Sean Penn’s “Into the Wild”, numerous individuals pack their backpacks and eagerly step into their (sometimes newly-bought) hiking shoes and tramp into the Alaskan Wild to pay homage to their hero Chris McCandless. Filled with personal anecdotes and interviews, Severin’s Outside article takes a new approach Into the Wild commentary by directing attention to the lives McCandless’s story affected indirectly rather than critiquing on McCandless himself. In response to what appears to be a huge amount of troubled McCandless-inspired tramping stories, Saverin provides an unbiased rationale as a attempt to explain why so many are “willing to risk injury, and even death, to..visit the last home of Alaska’s most famous adventure casualty”. Saverin begins her article with anecdote- telling the unfortunate experience of young lovers and adept adventure seekers, Ackerman and Gros.
Shem Pete’s Alaska is about the wonders that Alaska has to give. Shem Pete focuses mainly on rivers located in Alaska in this book, such as the Skwentna River, Matanuska River, Turnagain Arm, and so on. Shem Pete gives a brief description of each river, the surroundings, and the culture within the area. From what I have read, every place that Shem Pete talks about, has their own language, and is very diverse and the rivers of Alaska has the most beautiful rivers in the world. Not only are these rivers here for sight seeing, but they are also there for hunting food, and to bring back food.
The setting takes place on an Island off Alaska and in Indianapolis. The message the author, Mikaelsen, wants the reader to understand
Throughout the Non-Fiction book “Into the Wild” the author Jon Krakauer traces young McCandless footsteps as he changed from Chris McCandless to Alex. More specially, Krakauer unfolds mysteries as to why McCandless abounded his previous life including his past identity. Young McCandless cuts off all connections with his family and goes into a journey to Alaska, where he encounters various obstacles. Krakauer anecdotes asserts McCandless as an individual lost trying to re-create himself.
Rhetorical Analysis of Jon Krakauer’s “Into the Wild ” Jon Krakauer ’s purpose in writing Into the Wild is to recount Chris McCandless’ journey, physical and metaphysical, from college in Georgia to his death in Alaska, through the use of factual, and anecdotal evidence. Krakauer uses factual evidence to establish that he is a trustworthy narrator capable of giving the reader a realistic scope on the events in the story. Jon uses anecdotal evidence to see into Chris’ psyche from the various perspectives found in the book’s excerpts, including how Jon understands the events.
Danger has always held a certain allure... McCandless, in his fashion, merely took risk-taking to its logical extreme” (Krakauer 182). There was no way to stop him from getting to Alaska, he lived in the Fairbanks city bus 142 for 112 days which is now commemorated in his honor. Most people see McCandless as an idiot who took on challenges he could not handle and dies in the process but from a readers point of view McCandless is a man brave enough to go on a voyage to find himself something most people cannot
In August 1992, a decomposed body, presumably died of starvation, was found inside an abandoned bus beside the Sushana River in Alaska. Shortly thereafter, the dead person was identified as twenty-four-year-old Chris McCandless, who was from an affluent family in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. A tragic story, with a mix of a young man, his well-off background, and happening in the most precarious but highly noble place, always had an emotional pull on people’s minds and stirred up people’s curiosity and perplexity. The question, often asked by the people with desire to grasp the truths, was why Chris with a privileged life would have gone to Alaska’s wilderness to face the ultimate challenge of his life. Was he in search of something
Even if he did eventually find the peace and solitude he was looking for in Alaska, his family did not. “From then on he scrupulously avoided contacting either his parents or Carine, the sister for whom he purportedly cared immensely. ‘We were all worried when we didn’t hear from him’ says Carine, ‘and I think my parents’ worry was mixed with hurt and anger. But I didn’t really feel hurt by his failure to write. I knew he was happy and doing what he wanted to do; I understood that it was important for him to see how independent he could be. ”
In some ways, Chris McCandless of Krakauer’s Into the Wild, acts as the epitome of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s ideals within his essay “Self-Reliance.” McCandless, who has grown into quite a celebrity, abandoned his family’s bourgeois values and sought to discover the terrain of his soul through an Alaskan Odyssey. Only months later, a moose hunter stumbled upon his corpse within a bus. Critics often chalk his death up as a warning to young adolescents looking for adventure, while the aforementioned adolescents idolize his journey. Despite the harsh denunciations and hero-worship, McCandless acted simply as his own person by disregarding society’s views and looking for his own thoughts in solitude, thus embodying Emerson’s “Self-Reliance.”
“So many people live in unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation” (57). Chris McCandless was determined to not be one of those men, he strived for a life in solitude, away from the demands of society. For that reason he went on an epic transcendental experience that took him from Mexico to Alaska. Along the way, he met and made an impact on peoples’ lives, people like Wayne Westenberg and Ronald Franz. Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild discusses Chris’s journey, and makes the reader question Chris’s reasons for going out into the wild.
In the book “Into the Wild”, John Krakauer gives an account of a man, Christopher McCandless, who decides to take a long trek across the west into Alaska, where he eventually perishes. The book “Wild”, written by Cheryl Strayed, follows her journey as a twenty-six year old woman across the Pacific Crest Trail. Throughout both stories, the characters go through intense battles with the world around them and themselves, but the stories are not completely identical. The reasons for these two people’s journeys are varied as is their outlook on life and how their journeys ended overall. Within these stories there are also hidden parallels that link the stories and create a very similar dynamic between the two.
When we think of going out into the wilderness to explore all its wonders, most of us would be petrified by the thought. However, for Chris McCandless and many others, the thought alone excited them. In the nonfiction novel, Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, Krakauer introduces to us the story of Chris McCandless and his journey through the Alaskan wilderness. In the novel, Krakauer tries to convey understanding between the reader and McCandles. Krakauer’s use of rhetorical devices such as diction and parallelism helps to defend Chris’s actions and explain the importance of his journey.
Christopher McCandless, whose life and journey are the main ideas of the novel “Into the Wild”, was about an adolescent who, upon graduating from Emory College, decided to journey off into the Alaskan wilderness. He had given away his savings of $25,000 and changed his name to Alex Supertramp. His voyage to Alaska took him two years during which he traveled all across the country doing anomalous jobs and making friends. He inevitably made it to Alaska were he entered the wilderness with little more than a few books, a sleeping bag and a ten pound bag of rice. A couple months after his first day in the wild, his body was found in an abandoned bus.
The Alaskan Bush is one of the hardest places to survive without any assistance, supplies, skills, and little food. Jon Krakauer explains in his biography, Into The Wild, how Christopher McCandless ventured into the Alaskan Bush and ultimately perished due to lack of preparation and hubris. McCandless was an intelligent young man who made a few mistakes but overall Krakauer believed that McCandless was not an ignorant adrenalin junkie who had no respect for the land. Krakauer chose to write this biography because he too had the strong desire to discover and explore as he also ventured into the Alaskan Bush when he was a young man, but he survived unlike McCandless. Krakauer’s argument was convincing because he gives credible evidence that McCandless was not foolish like many critics say he was.
This book is about the remote areas of the Arctic Circle. Lopez traveled there in order to write this book. That hard work has definitely paid off though. This book was so good that it won the National Book Award. This book gives a well pictured, thorough examination of the Arctic.
