Have you ever considered that christopher could not function as a person? Without math Chris would just fall apart due to insanity, but the way Haddon looks at it Chris uses it to concentrate on a certain thing. The thing is Chris would not be able to function as a human without math and earplugs. The reason Chris has an obsession with math is because it's his only a way to understand people and things.”I Like dogs” and “I find people confusing” The reason Chris likes dogs is because the human brain is so much more complex than dogs that Chris has a higher likelihood of making a decision that the dog will like and this will allow him to practice guessing what people are thinking but on a dog. The fact that Christopher is practicing with dogs shows he wants to insure the highest likelihood of success. This shows he is working things out …show more content…
For example when things get to loud he will stop and moans until he has calmed down. When exposed to noisy places like a subway, which is around 80 dB, he retreats to his safe place. With a know breaking point of 80 dB he wouldn’t be able to mow his lawn. The average lawn mower is 100dB. This would mean that he couldn’t live in a city because it's almost always 100 dB. Alone traffic is 85 dB not mentioning everything else. One of the ways he could help is with white noise. Which he does use by putting radios that are in between channels so that he lessions to the static. Well this helps alittle. The way white noise works is that it has you focus more on the static than the other noises so you are not processing as much but this does not stop the higher dB sounds because your ear uses the pressure waves to let you hear. Well the higher dB will just hit over the constant static that you hear. With this the lowest sound you can hear being the static that you’re shoving in your ear this makes you eardrum move less and damaging it
Chris believes that if he too the ticket from Wayne that would be a shortcut, an easy way out. Chris believes that the voyage is just as important as the destination. One example of this is on Page 67 Chapter 7 “Once Alex made his mind up about something, there was no changing it.” This quote shows Chris’s stubbornness and how he is determined to get to Alaska as he intended, the long way. Another quote showing that he lives to his own words, and wouldn’t take a shortcut is on Page 68 Chapter 7, when Chris sent a postcard to Wayne saying “April 18 Arrived in Whitefish this morning on a freight train. I am making good time. Today I will jump the border and turn north for Alaska. Give my regards to everyone.” TAKE CARE ,
“Don’t judge a book by it’s cover, it’s what’s inside counts” This quote reminds people about how they should not judge other people from the outside but look deep into their true personalities. Looking from the appearance and how Chris lives, everyone would assume that Chris is a crazy, foolish person and does everything without thinking. If people try to know more about Chris, they would have different perspective. Chris is intelligent, determined, independent and follows what he believes. He went into the wilderness to escape from the society that tries to suppress him and look for the meaning of life.
Although living this life is not always easy for Chris, he embarks on this adventure to achieve what truly matters to him in life.
In a certain sense that’s how Chris lived his entire life” (112). Chris was creative in everything he did, separating him from his classmates and most of society in general. He was also intensely spiritual from such a young age and viewed running an almost religious exercise. “Chris would use the spiritual aspect to try and motivate us,” recalls Eric Hathaway, another friend on the team. “He’d tell us to think about all the evil in the world, all the hatred, and imagine ourselves running against the forces of darkness, the evil wall that was keeping us from running our best. He believed doing well was all mental, a simple matter of harnessing whatever energy was available. As impressionable high school kids, we were blown away by that kind of talk” (112). McCandless was wise beyond his years to say the least. Testimony from Eric Hathaway’s experiences with Chris should be more than enough to prove how individual Chris was, even in high
While he stays at Shallow Creek, his conversation with Vanessa about his views of God shows his perception of the life: he questions how such a brutal God could exist, because Chris has a lot of pain and the world in his mind is not as bright as he appears. As his responses to adversities shape his perceptions, he no longer sees the world as a place full of hopes and he cannot hide his feeling of helplessness anymore, but although he shows his emotions to Vanessa, a thirteen-year-old girl like her cannot give him much help. Chris once again tries to solve his adversities with an unreal solution because he has no one else to talk with. Later in the story he joins the war to seek for other opportunities, however this time he does not only try to escape from the reality, but he also escapes from his nature, because his nature is never a solider: as he reveals on his letter, “[He does not] live inside [his body] anymore”. One day he is sent home from the battlefield because of a mental breakdown; this event marks his total lose of perceptions: insane people do not have perceptions. Since Chris always tries to escape from the reality and never really looks for a real solution to the problems, his perception becomes irreparably
...tic things. He sacrificed so much and put himself in danger to follow what he wanted to do. Chris was a smart cookie, and maybe that was what kept him going was the knowledge flooding through his body and the inspiration that reading gave him.
Most things came easy to Chris. In reality, there were very few things that he was not good at. He came from a privileged background. He was accepted and graduated from Emory University, an elite academic institution. All of these variables resulted in Chris despising the society from which he be... ...
Christopher abnormally obsesses over everything in his life. This is due to his severe OCD, which he struggles with throughout the novel. Likewise, Christopher’s OCD is depicted as a reaction to the lack of control over his environment. He copes with situations he cannot control by looking for various details within his life that bring him peace-of-mind him. For instance, before the policemen arrive at the crime scene of the murder of the Poodle, he felt tense and anxious caused by Mrs. Shears’s neurotic behavior in reaction to viewing Christopher peer over her dead dog. Later, when the police arrive to investigate the crime scene, Christopher feels a surge of comfort because the policeman is a representation (in Christopher’s mind) of order. When the police arrived Christopher thought: “Then the police arrived. I like the police. They have uniforms and
When Chris left for his journey he wasn’t crazy or stupid as many would say. “McCandless went into the wilderness not primarily to ponder nature or the world at large, but rather to explore the inner country of his own soul” pg. 183. The fact that Chris never bother to discuss his Alaskan walk about with his anyone especially his parents wasn’t intentional. However throughout the whole book it was made very clear that he was at odds with his parents in some way to go off on his journey but he didn’t want to hurt them, which I think Walt and Billie finally realized visiting the bus where Chris had passed. I think Chris just wanted to get away from his everyday life, clear his mind, a mind that didn’t involve the worries of expectations and the thoughts of his parents hanging on his shoulders.
McCandless, an intelligent child to say the least, was frustrated with orders by anyone. He wanted to do things his way or no way and he does this throughout his life. Whether it was getting an F in physics because he refused to write lab reports a certain way (an F was something that was never on McCandless report card) or not listening to advice from his parents to the extreme of leaving society to go into the wilderness, McCandless definitely was not a follower. His parents were told by one of his teachers at an early age that Chris "marched to the beat of his own drummer". Chris never lost his ability to do things the way he wanted and when he wanted to do them. After receiving his diploma from Emory in 1990 he set off on a two-year escapade that would eventually end his life but in my opinion, if Chris could start over he would probably not do things much differently. I think he would still donate his $25,000 to an organization, leave his car in the woods, burn the remainder of his money, and hitch-hiked across the United States. The only thing he might do differently is finding a way not to starve to death at the end of the novel.
Chris understands sacrifice as a mindlessly logical action that must be done if one wants to discover life’s true joys. Growing up, Chris felt that all his endeavors would be successful
He chose to live deliberately to find real happiness. While living in college, Chris lived off campus in a spartan like apartment, with a couple of crates, electricity and water. After graduating college, he left behind a middle class life full of education and materialistic items to set out on a adventure that would allow him to go into the wild to find his true self. What most people in society would call crazy. A quote from Henry David Thoreau says, “Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!” (Walden) Thoreau is saying that people should live a simple life, with out the material possessions controlling their happiness. Chris understood that materialism doesn’t create real happiness and satisfaction. He gave up the comfort of his home to go out to the wild. He gives away his possessions, something society values too much . He gives his money to charity and burns the money he has left in his wallet. He began a simply life hitchhiking, finding food and shelter in the wild and being adventurous with the land and sights around him. In this way making a statement that he rejects the social views and values of property in the search of a higher purpose within
Throughout the novel, Krakauer formulates strategies in his writing through the employment of logos, the appeal to reason. He utilizes this to allow the reader to learn about Chris’s personality throughout his life. “Nuance, strategy, and anything beyond the rudimentaries of technique were wasted on Chris. The only way he cared to tackle a challenge was head-on, right now, applying the full brunt of his extraordinary energy” (111). Chris was a person who would do things first, ask questions later in a sense. His compulsive behavior is accounted for when he decided to take on the adventure to Alaska. Moreover, it also led up to possible parallels between Krakauer himself and Chris within the second half of the novel. “When I decided to go to
The ability to empathize allows people to understand feelings and connect with others emotionally. Christopher lacks the ability to empathize because his mind is very logical; hence he finds it difficult to understand others. As a result, he resents communication with people. On page three of the text, Siobhan shows Christopher drawings of different moods and emotions which Christopher has difficulties interpreting, and Christopher said “I kept the piece of paper in my pocket and took it out when I didn’t understand what someone was saying. But it was very difficult to decide which of the diagrams was most like the face they were making because people’s faces move very quickly…and now if I don’t k...
All in all, it is interesting how the trials of life can lead a person into an awakening that inspires millions. Many people believe that walking “into the wild” to live off the land and find himself alone in nature was arrogant, foolish and irresponsible. Chris lacks of knowledge about the wild was a major factor in his death. Chris did not plan how he will survive in the wilderness without proper equipments. He misunderstood that he would have no problem in setting in the wild. Chris immature manner and decisions lead him to starvation and ultimately death. If he planned it out in the beginning he would have saved his life.