Symbols In Into Thin Air

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Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air Albert Einstein once proclaimed, “ Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” Einstein, in this quote, was saying that all types of nature, whether it be human or physical, require profound examination to have the ability to recognize the nature of ourselves as people. The modest yet extraordinary statement perfectly illustrates Jon Krakauer’s non-fiction novel Into Thin Air. The book is a personal account of his journey climbing Mount Everest and the tragic events that occurred along with it. Into Thin Air not only brought awareness to the issues involving the Earth and it’s air quality, but also created an outlet for writers to use real life events as symbols for significant lessons. …show more content…

Through a first person point of view, Jon Krakauer takes the reader through every single point of his journey, and even discuss previous writings and accounts of former climbers or people who have had opinions on it. In the novel, the reader learns that Krakauer is climbing a part of the Adventure Consultant, which was a program that was designed to make it easier for climbers to adjust to the conditions of climbing Mount Everest. When they are climbing however, all the climbers have trouble breathing and keeping on weight, but they assume it is just the normal change in aptitude. As they continue on, One man dies from not being able to breath, and onward from that moment, more deaths occur. They were not allowed to turn around until they reached the summit point, so when they did everything began going wrong. There is a terrible storm that occurs and Krakauer must climb back to a previous checkpoint of his climb to stay safe. Krakauer makes it back to his fourth checkpoint safely, while the other climbers are way behind him. Krakauer figured out that Most of his team died due to the terrible storm and the hole in the atmosphere. At the end of the novel, Krakauer explains that he has extreme survivors guilt and that this story and the environmental issues need to be