Three Cups Of Tea Literary Analysis

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Three Cups of Tea, written by David Relin and Greg Mortenson, is a story about Mortenson's mission to provide education to children in Pakistan and Afghanistan after he stumbles across a village during a climbing expedition. Supposedly this is a true story. However, Jon Krakauer, author of Three Cups of Deceit, writes to uncover the truth behind Mortenson's story. Although some of the events have been proven as true, Krakauer has found that several others have been exaggerated. The credibility of all three authors is determined by their sources, evidence, and ethics. Based on ethics, Mortenson seems to be the least credible and Krakauer is the most credible, with Relin’s credibility falling somewhere in between.
Mortenson is a former mountaineer who lives in Montana with his wife and two children. He is the director of the Central Asia Institute and he claims to spend several months per year building schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Relin is a journalist who lives in Portland, Oregon. He has won more than forty awards for his writing. Krakauer is an author and mountaineer. He was featured during a 60 Minutes interview about Mortenson and Three Cups of Deceit.
Mortenson’s story seems believable, however his story is fiction that is presented as fact.
At any moment, Mortenson expected to find Scott Darsney, a fellow member of his expedition, with …show more content…

He writes Mortenson’s story as if it were factual, when it is actually fiction. When details of the book were called into question, he began having financial and emotional problems. This ended in Relin committing suicide. The stress from this situation suggests that Relin may have known that Mortenson’s stories were fake and he decided to write them anyway. This detracts from Relin’s credibility because he writes the stories as if they are completely true in order to get good reviews. Relin’s personal ethics are questioned for this same

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