Craig Medred’s “The fiction of John Krakauer’s Into the Wild” makes claim as to why Into the Wild should be referred to as a novel, in comparison to what the story is currently classified as. Backing this statement up with multiple valid points, Medred brings to light information such as; the interview with Jeff Apple Benowitz, that Krakauer basically disregarded – though it was an admittedly hard to believe story – the multiple stories that Krakauer made up based on one or two worded entries, or even the disregarded entries like “DREAM” or “many mushrooms”. However, Medred also seems hell bent on proving that Krakauer was so extremely biased towards McCandless and his actions, that Medred purposefully misled his own audience, by laying out interesting claims and …show more content…
There are many other things that aren’t “traditional”, yet we still freely use today. For example; in Genesis, God deems that humanity will suffer due to Adam and Eve’s betrayal – included in this suffering is that man will wither in heat and freeze in ice storms. Doesn’t it seem as though we’ve cheated the system by having central heating and cooling?
About four paragraphs into Medred’s article entitled, “A death in Oregon sparks another look ‘Into the Wild’”, the word “schizophrenia” is brought up for the first time. Keep in mind, this isn’t the first time that Medred has accused Chris McCandless of being a schizophrenic – see also his article, “The beatification of Chris McCandless: From thieving poacher to saint”. In addition to every time Medred claims that McCandless is a schizophrenic, he occasionally brings up the fact that he may have had narcissistic personality disorder, or that perhaps he was
Into the wild is a book about a young man, who leaves society to hitchhike to Alaska and live alone in the wilderness. “Christopher Johnson McCandless graduated from Emory University in May 1990 with a degree in history and anthropology”p.20. “toward the end of June, Chris mailed his parents a copy of his final grade report.”p.21. He was a well educated man. He had many opportunities in life to be successful. “It was the last anyone in chris family would ever hear from him”.p.22. By August, Chris’ parents received his grades in the mail. He asked the post office to delay them mailing his final grades to his family.
The day is unlike any other. The mail has come and lying at the bottom of the stack is the favored Outside magazine. The headline reads, “Exclusive Report: Lost in the Wild.” The cover speaks of a twenty four year old boy who “walked off into America’s Last Frontier hoping to make sense of his life.” The monotony of the ordinary day has now vanished from thought as Jon Krakauer’s captivating article runs through the mind like gasoline to an engine. The article is not soon forgotten, and the book Into the Wild is happened upon three years later. The book relates the full story of Christopher Johnson McCandless and how he left his family and friends after graduating college in order to find himself. Krakauer based the book off of his article on McCandless that was printed in January of 1993. From the time of writing the article to the printing of Into the Wild, Krakauer was obsessed with the tale of the boy who rid himself of society and later turned up dead in the Alaskan frontier. In the foreword of Into the Wild, Krakauer describes McCandless as “an extremely intense young man [who] possessed a streak of stubborn idealism that did not mesh readily with modern existence” and who was in deed searching for a “raw, transcendent experience” (i-ii). Krakauer is correct in assessing this conclusion about McCandless. This conclusion is seen throughout the book in many different assessments. Krakauer uses logical appeal, a comparison to his own life, and assumption to bring about his assessment of McCandless’ life.
A good portion of Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer, focuses on the characterization of the protagonist, Chris McCandless. Krakauer shares his opinions on Chris frequently throughout the duration of his book. Chris is portrayed through anecdotes told by people who knew him and through Krakauer’s own personal relation to him. Through these two methods the reader is given a very clear image of Chris. Into the Wild, focuses a lot on Chris’s youth and especially how that influenced his decisions. Krakauer compares Chris’ leneincey on his literary heres versus his harsh judgments on his parents. Chris’ tense relationships with his parents are also used to help show how young Chris really is. After Chris’ youth is made apparent to the reader Krakauer
Many people get sensible and feel miserable at the sight of cruel remarks on what they believe is sacred. Jon Krakauer wrote the book, Into the wild, to express his thoughts about his disapproval on what several people assume about Christopher McCandless, the main character. This people label McCandless stupid for leaving to Alaska without the vital equipment. To prove that he is not “stupid” for doing this he used appeal to pathos, appeal to logos and appeal to ethos.
Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer about a young mans names Chris McCandless who's dream which become reality, but then ends up in a tragedy. Jon Krakauer is a very unique author which his story creates many emotional and valuable lesson throughout the story.
Good authors always find a way to simply relate their story to their audience. And the writer of Into the Wild Jon Krakauer indubitably does this with the usage of rhetorical devices throughout his factual story of Chris McCandless, a youthful Emory college graduate whose body is strangely discovered in an old transit bus deep in the Alaskan wilderness in September of 1992, 24 years old at the time. The author recaps meaningful events of McCandless and his journey leading to the point of his death and successfully controlled the rhetorical devices of characterization, comparison, logos, ethos, pathos and numerous others in order to encourage to the audience that Chris was not some weird psychotic kid that the general population
Seeking emotionally connection to nature and wanting to be alone from the rest of the world Chris McCandless, also known as Alexander Supertramp, is determined to go into the wild. Many are lead to question why someone would do such a things as leave your family, leave your riches, and leave everything you have to have nothing and be alone in Alaska. Within this book Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer you see the personal views and beliefs of Chris McCandless; while having many excerpts within the book of his favorite authors’ gives you an insight to why as he would choose to do such a thing. Some may believe that Chris McCandless went into to the wild because of his rebellion of youth however this was not the real reason. I believe the combinations of internal and external forces such as: literary influences, his family issues, and his determination to do what he truly wanted was what truly led him to the wild. This is the real reason to why he left everything behind.
The most important part in writing a novel is to enable the audience to understand what is being communicated. Krakauer did so by clearly communicating his message to his audience. He wanted to share the story of McCandless, a young man who dreamt of conquering the wilderness alone. This conquest ultimately ended in failure and cast a feeling of sorrow upon his family and friends. With the exception of a slight difficulty to understand the story during certain chapters, Krakauer’s novel was full of thrill of emotion and life-lessons.
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.
In April of 1992 a young man named Chris McCandless, from a prosperous and loving family, hitchhiked across the country to Alaska. He gave $25,000 of his savings to charity, left his car and nearly all of his possessions. He burned all the cash he had in his wallet, and created a new life. Four months later, his body was found in an abandoned bus. Jon Krakauer constructed a journalistic account of McCandless’s story. Bordering on obsession, Krakauer looks for the clues to the mystery that is Chris McCandless. What he finds is the intense pull of the wilderness on our imagination, the appeal of high-risk activities to young men. When McCandless's mistakes turn out to be fatal he is dismissed for his naiveté. He was said by some to have a death wish, but wanting to die and wanting to see what one is capable of are too very different things. I began to ask myself if Chris really wasn’t as crazy as some people thought. Then I realized it was quite possible that the reason people thought he was crazy was because he had died trying to fulfill his dream. If he had walked away from his adventure like Krakauer, people would have praised him rather than ridicule. So I asked the question, “How does Krakauer’s life parallel Chris McCandlesses?”
In the book Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer wrote about Christopher McCandless, a nature lover in search for independence, in a mysterious and hopeful experience. Even though Krakauer tells us McCandless was going to die from the beginning, he still gave him a chance for survival. As a reader I wanted McCandless to survive. In Into the Wild, Krakauer gave McCandless a unique perspective. He was a smart and unique person that wanted to be completely free from society. Krakauer included comments from people that said McCandless was crazy, and his death was his own mistake. However, Krakauer is able to make him seem like a brave person. The connections between other hikers and himself helped in the explanation of McCandless’s rational actions. Krakauer is able to make McCandless look like a normal person, but unique from this generation. In order for Krakauer to make Christopher McCandless not look like a crazy person, but a special person, I will analyze the persuading style that Krakauer used in Into the Wild that made us believe McCandless was a regular young adult.
In 1992, Christopher McCandless set off on an odyssey into the backcountry of Alaska, an adventure that had proved fatal. After McCandless's corpse was found, Jon Krakauer wrote an article on the story of Chris McCandless, which was released in the January 1993 issue of Outside magazine. The article had received a negative response; several readers criticized McCandless for being foolish and ill-prepared, and showed no sympathy or remorse for his death. McCandless has been referred to as a nut, a kook, and a fool. However, McCandless was not a nonsensical man. In 1996, Jon Krakauer's novel, Into the Wild, was published. The novel uncovers more detail of McCandless's story. Into the Wild rebuts the idea of McCandless being someone who is foolish, and speaks of the many occasions where McCandless has demonstrated great perseverance and determination. The novel also proves the intelligence of McCandless, and brings insight into McCandless's psyche. The following examples will illustrate how McCandless was not a fool, but someone to admire.
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.
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.
Krakauer, Jon. Into the wild. New York: Anchor Books , a division of Random House Inc.,, 1997. Print.