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Essays about transcendence
Philosophy of transcendentalism
Philosophy of transcendentalism
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A shooting star darted across the sky, the candles on the cake blown out, it is 11:11 o’clock, time to make a wish. There are two types of people in this world, people who wish, and people who work. Wishing is easy, everyone can wish for something, anything. However, dreaming is different. Dreaming is when a person has an attainable goal in mind that they want to reach and are willing to do whatever they have to in order to achieve that goal. Dreamers are the ones who have the ambition to reach for their target goal. Chris McCandless, a young man who traveled across the country, unprepared, yet determined. The story Into The Wild, by Jon Krakauer, gives the readers an insight on Chris McCandless’s journey to Alaska, where the harsh conditions …show more content…
In October of 1990, a park ranger, Bud Walsh, and his group were sent on a mission to Lake Mead National Recreation Area to observe a very rare plant known as A. californica. Little did this man know he was about to come across one of the most significant pieces to Chris’s journey. While the park rangers were looking around and climbing up a bank, one of the rangers caught a glimpse of a peculiar looking object that did not quite fit the scenery. The group went down to investigate the concealed large object. As they pulled off the tarp that was shielding the car from the rangers curious eyes, “they found an old yellow Datsun without license plates”(Krakauer, 26). Leaving his beloved car behind marked a very important milestone in Chris’s journey to Alaska. His car represented the portal between him and society and it symbolized the connection that he was attempting to rid himself from. He could not be completely consumed by the wilderness until he rids himself from the impurity that reeked from his home. Once Chris left his car behind, as well as other belongings, it marked his first official step alone in the wilderness. Chris wanted to push himself and test his abilities to survive on his own without the assistance from man-made machines. Chris is considered a transcendentalist due to his unique idea that nature is what brings people …show more content…
Chris McCandless risked his life to travel to Alaska to escape the small box that his parents confined him in. He was abused mentally and physically and needed an escape to a place where he would never have to worry about encountering that same guilt he felt in society. Being inspired by someone is not a new concept in this world. It is very important to find someone to admire and look up to because they can assist in shaping that person’s future for the better. Henry Thoreau is an author who Chris felt a deep connection with and was inspired by him and his transcendental beliefs. Chris is courageous for ignoring the people around him who were trying to bring him down. His whole childhood he was told exactly what he was and was not allowed to do. Having as planned out of a life as he did, he chose to reject society and focus on the original beauty of the world rather than look as what it was forced to become. Chris is some way relates to the nature and wildlife because he understand what it is like to be abused without having chance to defend itself. Humans have control of the world, and it can be changed around with just snap of out finger. However, people do not think of the consequences it has on the earth. People are abusing what the earth is providing us for their own selfies
“I have had a happy life and thank the Lord. Goodbye and may God bless all!”(199), these were the last words of Chris McCandless in a picture with him smiling and waving good-bye. Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer is an extension of an article first published in Outside magazine. In the book, Krakauer further explains the journey of Chris McCandless, while providing his own insight to provide the reader a better understanding of the McCandless reasoning. McCandless lived a nomadic life after he graduated from college, traveling from South Dakota to Mexico. However, his two year journey proved fatal when he took a trip to Alaska, his greatest undertaking. Among his remains several books were discovered, including a copy of Walden by Henry D. Thoreau
Throughout Into the Wild, Krakauer portrays Christopher McCandless as an infallibly eager young man hoping to distance himself from the society he so obviously loathes, to "live off the land," entirely independent of a world which has "conditioned [itself] to a life of security." Chris, contrarily to this depiction, is disparagingly viewed by some as a "reckless idiot" who lacked the sense he needed to survive in the Alaskan wilderness. This derogatory assessment of Chris's mindset is representative of the society he hopes to escape and contains all the ignorance that causes him to feel this way. Nevertheless, he is misjudged by these critics, allowing Krakauer to hold the more accurate interpretation of Chris's character, his goals, and his accomplishments.
He went through many obstacles that could have proved fatal. From canoeing in the Colorado River to picking the right berries, he was testing his intelligence. Chris had a true confidence in the land and in himself to set out on a mission so dangerous. “Wilderness appealed to those bored or disgusted with man and his works. It not only offered an escape from society but also was an ideal stage for the Romantic individual to exercise the cult that he frequently made of his own soul. The solitude and total freedom of the wilderness created a perfect setting for either melancholy or exaltation” (Nash; Krakauer 157). Chris longed to escape from society and rely on only mother nature. An innumerable amount of people desire to withdraw from society as Chris did; but they are so comfortable and secure with a normal life they do not dare take such a gutsy
The novel “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer goes into great detail to describe the main character, Chris McCandless, who died traveling alone into the Alaskan wilderness. McCandless, whom in the novel renamed himself Alex, left his home and family to travel to Alaska in 1992. In Alaska McCandless planned to live an isolated life in the desolate wilderness, but unfortunately he did not survive. This non-fiction novel portrays his life leading up to his departure and it captures the true essence of what it means to be “in the wild”.
In the novel, A Hero’s Journey, Joseph Campbell, an American mythologist, writer, and lecturer, states that “every decision made by a young person is life decisive. What seems to be a small problem is really a large one. So everything that is done early in life is functionally related to a life trajectory” (Campbell). In mythic criticism, the critic sees mythic archetypes and imagery connecting and contrasting it with other similar works. Certain patterns emerge, such as a traditional hero on a journey towards self actualization. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer portrays this hero’s journey. The protagonist of the novel, Chris McCandless, hitchhikes to Alaska and walks alone into the wilderness, north of Mt. McKinley. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. He thought that the reality of the modern world was corrupt and uncompassionate, so he went on this journey in order to find a life of solitude and innocence that could only be expressed through his encounters with the wild. During this ambitious journey to find the true meaning of life, Chris McCandless exhibits a pattern like the type explained above. In Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, Chris McCandless follows this mythic pattern, seeking to be the traditional hero who spurns civilization, yet he discovers that modern heroes cannot escape their reality.
Sometimes a character may be pushed over the edge by our materialistic society to discover his/her true roots, which can only be found by going back to nature where monetary status was not important. Chris McCandless leaves all his possessions and begins a trek across the Western United States, which eventually brings him to the place of his demise-Alaska. Jon Krakauer makes you feel like you are with Chris on his journey and uses exerts from various authors such as Thoreau, London, and Tolstoy, as well as flashbacks and narrative pace and even is able to parallel the adventures of Chris to his own life as a young man in his novel Into the Wild. Krakauer educates himself of McCandless’ story by talking to the people that knew Chris the best. These people were not only his family but the people he met on the roads of his travels- they are the ones who became his road family.
Living in the wilderness is difficult, but understanding the meaning of such lifestyle is even more difficult. One of the Christopher’s admirable qualities was that he was well aware of what he was doing. He knew about the difficulties and dangers that he would face into the wilderness, and was mentally prepared for that. Author Jon Krakauer says that “McCandless was green, and he overestimated his resilience, but he was sufficiently skilled to last for sixteen weeks on little more than his wits and ten pounds of rice. And he was fully aware when he entered the bush that he had given himself a perilously slim margin for error. He knew precisely what was at stake” (182). McCandless was an educated youth, who loved nature and dreamed of living in the Alaskan wilderness. Although he ignored to take many necessary things with him on this
A quote from William Bolitho states, “Adventure must start with running away from home.” Into The Wild is a true account of an individual who seeks the natural land of the Earth to develop a better life for himself. The author, Jon Krakauer, publishes the series of events that lead to the death of a young nomad, Christopher McCandless. The mysterious death of the runaway intellect was investigated by Jon Krakauer, an editor who retraced McCandless’s steps and interviewed everyone that had an interaction with McCandless or his alias, Alexander Supertramp. McCandless left everything behind, including his wealth and bright future, to start a new life as a nomadic hitchhiker. He intended to begin a life of religious philosophy to connect with himself through optimism, self-reliance and nature, a life of transcendentalism. As he traveled around the Western United States,
Alaska is one of the most unpredictable, lonely, and barren places in the country, and it would soon become home to two men’s most extreme expeditions. Christopher Mccandless traveled to Alaska in 1992 after already spending two years on his own; his story is shared in the Jon Krakauer novel Into the Wild. Jon shares Chris’s story of attempting to defeat the barren Stampede Trail through discovered journal entries from Chris, as well as interviews with the people he interacted with. To compare himself to Chris, Krakauer reveals his own story of tackling Alaska when he was approximately Chris’s age. Jon traveled to Alaska in an attempt to scale the hazardous Devil’s Thumb, and he explains the horrific experiences and trials he must complete to survive. Both men speak of the intense challenges of Alaska, and how their health and sanity are put at risk. Although both men took the same journey to Alaska, their lives, values, and motives were very different, as well as analogous in some ways.
Chris McCandless is regarded as being something as a spiritual figure almost as a cult hero, some call him a disillusioned fool, some call him a great adventurer, and the debate still continues. As Matthew Power calls in his article, an article where he tells the story of McCandless,“The debate falls into two camps: Krakauer's visionary seeker, the tragic hero who dared to live the unmediated life he had dreamed of and died trying; or, as many Alaskans see it, the unprepared fool, a greenhorn who had fundamentally misjudged the wilderness he'd wanted so desperately to commune with.” Like so many stories covering Christopher McCandless’ death, both ends of the argument are discussed in an unfavored manner in the hopes to help develop an opinion on the McCandless story. This open ended question can only be answered open-endedly based on what the readers base for themselves as covered stories intend. Like Power has done, ...
Into the Wild, written by John Krakauer tells of a young man named Chris McCandless who 1deserted his college degree and all his worldly possessions in favor of a primitive transient life in the wilderness. Krakauer first told the story of Chris in an article in Outside Magazine, but went on to write a thorough book, which encompasses his life in the hopes to explain what caused him to venture off alone into the wild. McCandless’ story soon became a national phenomenon, and had many people questioning why a “young man from a well-to-do East Coast family [would] hitchhike to Alaska” (Krakauer i). Chris comes from an affluent household and has parents that strived to create a desirable life for him and his sister. As Chris grows up, he becomes more and more disturbed by society’s ideals and the control they have on everyday life. He made a point of spiting his parents and the lifestyle they lived. This sense of unhappiness continues to build until after Chris has graduated college and decided to leave everything behind for the Alaskan wilderness. Knowing very little about how to survive in the wild, Chris ventures off on his adventure in a state of naïveté. It is obvious that he possessed monumental potential that was wasted on romanticized ideals and a lack of wisdom. Christopher McCandless is a unique and talented young man, but his selfish and ultimately complacent attitude towards life and his successes led to his demise.
In 1990, when he was 22 years old, Christopher McCandless ventured out into the Alaska wilderness in search for true happiness, and 2 years later he suffered a tragic death. An aspiring writer, Jon Krakauer, found McCandless’ story fascinating and chose to dedicate 3 years of his life to write a novel about him. The book entitled “Into the Wild” tells the tale of Christopher McCandless, an ill prepared transcendentalist longing for philosophical enrichment, who naïvely, failed to consider the dangers of isolating himself from human society for such a long period of time. Though Christopher McCandless made a courageous attempt to separate himself from society, in order to achieve self-fulfillment, the stubborn nature of this reckless greenhorn led him to his unfortunate demise.
The book, Into the wild, takes us into the world of a young man named Christopher Johnson McCandless. He travelled across the western United States from 1990 to 1992, and on April 28, 1992, he started his last adventure and walked into the wilds of Alaska. About 112 days later, he died of starvation. Unsurprisingly, public opinion polarized on his behavior. Some may admire his courage and noble ideals, though some regard him as an idiotic and arrogant narcissist. Although he died on his way to find the truth and back to nature, I believe that Chris McCandless should be considered as a hero, but I cannot completely approve of all his behaviors.
In Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer explores the human fascination with the purpose of life and nature. Krakauer documents the life and death of Chris McCandless, a young man that embarked on an Odyssey in the Alaskan wilderness. Like many people, McCandless believed that he could give his life meaning by pursuing a relationship with nature. He also believed that rejecting human relationships, abandoning his materialistic ways, and purchasing a book about wildlife would strengthen his relationship with nature. However, after spending several months enduring the extreme conditions of the Alaskan wilderness, McCandless’ beliefs begin to work against him. He then accepts that he needs humans, cannot escape materialism, and can never fully understand how nature functions. Most importantly, he realizes that human relationships are more valuable than infinite solitude. McCandless’ gradual change of heart demonstrates that exploring the wilderness is a transformative experience. Krakauer uses the life and death of Chris McCandless to convey that humans need to explore nature in order to discover the meaning of life.
Although Chris McCandless experienced many different things and entertaining things on his journey, the thrilling adventure led to his own demise. It was Chris McCandless/Alex Supertramp’s fault that he died because it was his actions that led to the consequences he had. “No longer would he be called Chris McCandless; he was now Alexander Supertramp, master of his own destiny.”(23) This shows that by changing his name and heading out on his adventure that he knew what he was getting himself into. It also shows that he wanted to be the master of his future and that he thought he was prepared for what would happen.