Labeling of McCandless in Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild

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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.

By comparing Krakauer’s own life experiences and other peoples too to McCandless, he gave a little perspective and demonstrated that the negative remarks of many people were not correct for someone else had performed the same thing. Krakauer compared his youth mistakes to Chris McCandless by appealing to pathos since many other adolescents make them as well. First of all, Krakauer warned the reader, “I interrupt McCandless story with fragments…from my own youth…I do so in the hope that my experiences will throw some oblique light on the enigma of Chris McCandless,” (Krakauer’s note). He stated there that he ‘hopes’ to make a better presentation of McCandless’s life for he wanted to show that he deserves respect. He mirrored his own experiences and explained why he did it to draw some conclusion on why McCandless did it as well. Krakauer also said that he threw some ‘oblique light’ meaning that he attempted to make him appear better for he thought that Chris McCandless had to be a valued guy. A quote that proves the ‘oblique light’ that Krakauer threw was when he said, “Edwards regarded climbing as a “psycho-neurotic tendency”; he climb not for sport but to find refuge from the inner torment that framed his existence” (Krakauer 135). Krakauer wrote about this ...

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...id this because he passed through the same thing. When he quitted his job he saw how easy it was, “and how good it felt” (Krakauer 136). Considering that Krakauer has a conscience it made him say this because he knew how it felt to be in McCandless and could actually talk about it. In conclusion, not everyone follows their dream and because McCandless did, Krakauer used appeal to ethos to prove it.

To express his thoughts about the disapproval he has of several people identifying Christopher McCandless as stupid and all those despiteful names, Jon Krakauer used appeal to pathos, appeal to logos and appeal to ethos. Many people get hurt when someone judges something that they consider great as something foolishness. So why do they judge? Would they get hurt if someone judged them?

Work Cited

Krakauer, Jon. Into the Wild. New York: Anchor Books, 1997. Print.

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