It is hard to piece together the beliefs that a Realist person has versus the beliefs of a Transcendentalist has. The book contains both philosophies about them but the book itself portrays more of a Transcendentalist feel to it. The author portrays himself as a Realist, he may be known to write about nature, outdoors, but he has a different outlook. In the book, Into the Wild written by Jon Krakauer talks about a young man named Chris McCandless who decides to walk alone into the wilderness in Alaska to invent a new life for himself. He then struggles to make it out on his own and his body is found inside a bus. While both philosophies of Realism and Transcendental exist in Into the Wild, Realism is the real focus for Jon Krakauer.
Transcendentalists have many characteristics but one of many describes the dignity of manual labor. It cleanses their soul and makes them feel alive. Through the story, Jon tells the readers plenty about the character itself and reveals facts. Since Chris McCandless himself is a Transcendentalist, it is very easy for the author to talk about his tenets. The author states "It was a different story Alex, he was the hardest worker I've ever seen" (Krakauer 35) While Chris continued working for McCandless many people grew affection towards him. His co-workers said great things about him and so did his manager. Nobody imagined that he would go on an adventure and disappear in a couple months. He needed the money at the time, started working for a while, and then headed back on the road. He never gave them his social security number, because he did not want to leave any evidence or for the detective to find him. Krakauer used that quote to show emotion and to let the readers know that Chris surely wished...
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...complishes this by indicating the attributes of realism.
While both philosophies of Realism and Transcendentalism exist in Into the Wild, Realist is the real focus for Jon Krakauer. Since the author is a Realist, he chose to write this book, because he was trying to send a message to all young people. Throughout the book, he tries to not make an authorial presence. Even though Jon Krakauer and Chris have parallel lives they both wanted to accomplish a goal where they felt superior from everyone else. Krakauer dreamed of climbing the mountain Devils Thumb. The difference between the two is that Jon can actually tell a story now based on what he has previously lived. However, I think he is trying to remind us that you do not always get a second chance, Chris McCandless did not.
Work Cited
Krakauer, Jon. Into the Wild. New York: Anchor, 1997. Print.
In the film Into the Wild directed by Sean Penn, viewers may have gathered enough evidence to back up their thoughts on Christopher McCandless being a transcendentalist or a non-transcendentalist. Chris portrayed the effort of being a transcendentalist just as Ralph Waldo Emerson and David Thoreau did. He abandoned his nice life to hitchhike all over North America and he was happy about it. McCandless unfortunately died in the wilderness of Alaska after he had eaten moldy seeds. Sooner or later, that mistake was enough to end his life. He shows behavior of being a Transcendentalist by the ways that he despised society, burned his money after he abandoned his car, and went out to Alaska on his own.
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.
To begin with, McCandless did not present the slightest interest in religion. An issue is created in the claim that McCandless is a true transcendentalist due to the fact that religion was a large portion of the transcendental movement. Transcendentalists believed that there is a unity between nature and God; That one may discover God through immersing themselves in nature. They also held the belief that God is present in each individual; That humans as a whole form God because a fragment of Him is within each human being. Christopher McCandless did not share these beliefs. In reality, McCandless was arrogant and self-important. He felt inferior to nothing and superior to everything. He did not believe that Go...
Chris McCandless lived a life in which he disgusted by human civilization, and left it, eventually being led to his death in Alaska. McCandless entered the Alaskan wilderness severely unprepared, a brutal error that cost him his life. In the novel, Into the Wild by John Krakauer, Chris glances into his mindset by they way of his journal, history, and analysis of his life reveals that Chris McCandless as an arrogant and judgemental narcissist, while not mentally unstable, had a condescending attitude towards society and perished not only from his reckless stupidity but also from his unparalleled ego. Chris McCandless was immune to love and had an obsession with nature and society, him showing characteristics that created the appearance of McCandless
Many people have theories and philosophies about life in general. There have been countless amounts of books published by countless amounts of people on the ideas of people in the past and the present. Transcendentalism falls into a sector of all of these ideas. Transcendentalism has affected many people since the philosophy was first introduced. Henry Thoreau is a name that is always associated with transcendentalism through one of his famous novels,Walden. John Krakauer is able to explain how transcendentalism has affected Chris McCandless in the novel Into The Wild. McCandless's life is comparable to Thoreau's in a variety of ways such as motives, however both McCandless and Thoreau's lives are much different by means such as their reasons for traveling, and what they did.
Into the Wild, a novel written by Jon Krakauer, as well as a film directed by Sean Penn, talks about Chris McCandless, a young individual who set out on a journey throughout the Western United States, isolating himself from society, and more importantly, his family. During his travels, he meets a lot of different people, that in a way, change his ways about how he sees the world. There are many characteristics to describe McCandless, such as “naïve”, “adventurous”, and “independent”. In the book, Krakauer described McCandless as “intelligent”, using parts in his book that show McCandless being “intelligent”. While Krakauer thinks of McCandless as being “intelligent”, Penn thinks of McCandless as a more “saintly” type of person.
...en writing a book based on ethos, logos and pathos, it is very challenging for an author to stay completely objective. In Krakauer’s case, his bias comes out strongly in certain chapters, sometimes detracting from his argument. Some faults exist in his credibility and logic, but his use of emotional appeal makes up for what those areas lack. Krakauer does an excellent job developing the character of Chris McCandless. The author brings him back to life with his descriptions and is able to make him tangible to the reader. The discussion over what McCandless's thoughts were when he went on his fatal trek will continue as long as his memory lasts. Ultimately, the readers of Into the Wild are left to form their opinion of McCandless, with Krakauer nudging them along the way.
Many individuals decide to live their life in solitary; though, only a few choose to live in the wild. The book, Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer vividly paints the adventurous trek Chris McCandless went on. From the friends he made, to the hardships he went through, McCandless is portrayed as a friendly, sociable person despite the fact that he was a vagabond. Other than McCandless, there are even more individuals that have taken the risks to live in the wilderness such as, Jon Krakauer and Everett Ruess. All three of them had both similarities and differences between their own qualities as a person and their journey.
...elligence to help him last an extended period of time in the Alaskan wilderness. In truth, McCandless was someone who wanted to find himself. He wanted to get away from a life in which he could not find fulfilment, which is something many others would be able to relate to. Although most people would not go to such extremes to find fulfilment, everyone has a different way of finding happiness and going after what their heart truly desires. For McCandless, his desire was to live out in the wild. Unfortunately, this man of great character did not succeed in getting out alive. However, that does not change the fact that he tried. McCandless knew what he wanted for himself and he persisted, regardless of the obstacles he faced. He put an incredible amount of effort into accomplishing his goals and never gave up, and that is why Christopher McCandless is someone to admire.
To begin with, McCandless’s decision to walk into the wild was acceptable because he wanted to become an inspiration and an individual. Emerson states, “There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance: that imitation is suicide” (Emerson). Chris McCandless left to shun the conformist society that he could feel changing him. Chris wanted the chains that bound him to be broken. Society takes the individual and locks it up and destroys it. According to Emerson, “It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion: it is easy to in solitude to live after our own: but the great man is he who in the midst of the crow keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude” (Emerson). McCandless left his materialistic family to be his own person ad to be unique. The world’s opinion does not make the man wh...
Jon Krakauer, fascinated by a young man in April 1992 who hitchhiked to Alaska and lived alone in the wild for four months before his decomposed body was discovered, writes the story of Christopher McCandless, in his national bestseller: Into the Wild. McCandless was always a unique and intelligent boy who saw the world differently. Into the Wild explores all aspects of McCandless’s life in order to better understand the reason why a smart, social boy, from an upper class family would put himself in extraordinary peril by living off the land in the Alaskan Bush. McCandless represents the true tragic hero that Aristotle defined. Krakauer depicts McCandless as a tragic hero by detailing his unique and perhaps flawed views on society, his final demise in the Alaskan Bush, and his recognition of the truth, to reveal that pure happiness requires sharing it with others.
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 John Krakauer’s novel Into The Wild, the reader follows the life of a young man who, upon learning of his father’s infidelity and bigamy, seems to go off the deep end, isolating himself by traveling into the wild country of Alaska, unprepared for survival, where he died of starvation at 67 pounds.
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.
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.