Touching the void by Joe Simpson is a vivid, intense and powerful story of a horrifying adventure in the Peruvian Andes. Two experienced climbers, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, set out to conquer the mountain Siula Grande. They do indeed achieve their aim, but disaster strikes on the way down and Simon has to make an impossible decision – should he cut the rope holding Joe, thereby saving his own life, or should he stay attached, leading to certain death for both of them? They face an impossible journey, where their survival instinct and complete courage, prevail the human spirit over the power of mother nature’s battle. Alpine Style is referring to a specific style of mountain climbing which involves in a combination of snow, ice, and rock …show more content…
Although a person’s tolerance to hypoxia (lack of oxygen) varies. The more serious stage is high-altitude cerebral edema, also known as HACE, brain swelling that is potentially fatal. Which is “The lack of oxygen can directly damage brain cells. In addition, the walls of blood capillaries begin to leak at high altitudes, and the leaked fluid can cause dangerous swelling, pressing the brain outward against the rigid skull. Sometimes the optic nerves swell so badly they bulge into the back of the eye, degrading vision and causing retinal hemorrhages. Meanwhile blood, concentrated from dehydration and thickened by increased numbers of red blood cells, clots more easily. This clotting, along with the hemorrhage from the thinned capillaries, can cause a stroke. A climber with HACE may experience amnesia, confusion, delusions, emotional disturbance, personality changes and loss of consciousness.” (Fields). Joe stated there was two minds within him arguing. The voice was commanding and always right. He had to get to a glacier and the voice told how to go about it. This how you know Joe was experienced delusions from the lack of food, water, oxygen, and suffering from a broken leg and betrayal from …show more content…
Simon says, "The cruelty of it all sickened me. If felt as if there were something deliberate about it, something preordained by a bored and evil force." This would suggest that the mountain is playing games with them and that it is getting bored with their survival and is taking the game to the next dangerous level. In its power, as soon as Joe and Simon start to make progress the mountain acts to betray their hopes of escaping. It seems the difficult actions they’re going through makes them think there is evil out to get them. Being out there for so long, it is messing with their heads. The wilderness doesn't want to hurt no one, they believe in doing because they’re stuck out there and there isn't anything they can do. In contrast to his behavior, Simon stated, "It was as if the mountains were holding their breath, waiting for another death. Joe had died. The silence had said so; but must they take me as well?" This allowed Simon’s mind to be heard clearly, and his feelings of loneliness and guilt to roam freely. The mountain’s silence convinced him that Joe was dead. Furthermore, the way he speaks suggest he does not have much self-esteem, which makes sense given the position he was
This became the deadliest expedition to ever climb, with 15 people losing their lives. Krakauer explains his intrinsic motivations to accept this challenge and many of the mistakes that helped lead to the disasters of that day. He includes himself, and explicitly blames himself for at least one person's death. The experience affects him profoundly, and in addition to telling the story, the book focuses on how Krakauer is forever changed as a result of what happened. All of the clients have difficulty adjusting to the altitude, tiring easily, losing weight and moving slowly.
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer is an adventurous story about a Mount Everest expedition gone wrong. The journey up the mountain is like previous trips, but once they reach the top of the mountain all hell breaks loose. A massive storm traps climbers stuck on the top of the mountain with little to no oxygen, no shelter, and nowhere to go. Oxygen depletion alone can kill someone and make them vulnerable to novice mistakes. Krakauer notices when he is lacking oxygen as he says, “The world beyond the rubber mask was stupendously vivid but seemed not quite real, as if a movie were being projected in slow motion across the front of my goggles. I felt drugged, disengaged, thoroughly insulated from external stimuli” (179). HACE, a medical condition in which the brain swells, is caused by a lack of oxygen and can kill people within 48 hours if not treated. With a lack of shelter, the climbers are exposed to Artic-like conditions.
He alone saw that the jungle, which represented freedom and the lack of civilization, was not to be feared but to be understood; he alone knew that the mythical Beast of the island, feared by all the boys, was, in fact, their own inherent savagery. Through these truths, Simon represents a Christ figure paralleling Christ's misunderstood message and Christ's death. Simon was the observant, the quiet philosopher. He was often alone, sometimes by his own choice, and he liked to wander into the peaceful jungle. He sincerely cared about the other boys, sometimes helping the young ones to fetch fruit, yet "
“I’m not going to play any longer. Not with you.” (127). Jack leaves Ralph’s tribe because Ralph is a coward and he makes the rules. Jack’s leadership qualities comes back with a force and he makes his own tribe. Jack does like anyone telling him what to do and he is frustrated because of Ralph taking over him. Another reason to make his own tribe is that Ralph does not appreciate Jack hunting and he accuses him to let the fire out. His leadership skills become stronger but in a negative way. His behavior has changed because of hunting and by spending time on the island. Jack has become a sociopath. Even his hunting style has become more violent. After hunting a sow, he tortures the pig physically until the pig has a painful death. He also cuts the throat of the pig and places the head on the stick as a sacrifice. This action shows psychopathic tendency and how he was not able to kill the pig in his first attempt in hunting and now he abuses the pig and sacrifices the head. “He squirmed and looked down.”(160). When Stanley, a member of Jack’s tribe asks Jack about the death of Simon, Jack replies him by nervously saying no. This response by Jack portrays that Jack is trying to tell himself that he his not responsible for his own actions. During Simon’s murder, Jack was wearing a mask on his face and that makes him not responsible for Simon’s murder. During the end of the novel, Jack starts wearing his mask all the time because he does not want to be responsible for his own actions. ““He’s going to beat Wilfred.” “what for?” Robert shook his head doubtfully. “I don’t know. He didn’t say. He got angry and made us tie Wilfred up. He’s been”-he giggled excitedly-”he’s been tied for hours, waiting-”” (159). This quote from the novel clearly shows how Jack has been treating his tribe members. He is beating them for no reason by tieing them up for hours. Jack shows no emotion and he has become cold blooded. The
The book can be split into three parts to show how evil on the island advances. In the first part we learn about the boys meeting on the island and the first assembly. The boys share their ideas but hopes fall due to some of the boys, which fail to admit that they think they will be saved. In the second part the threat of evil begins especially due to the arrival of the dead air pilot. Immediately, the boys are struck with fear... and the boys are all affected with it like a disease What the boys don’t realize at this point is that its not an external fear which creates evil it’s the boys own nature. Finally the third part which is the most terrible part of the story is when the book explores the meaning and consequence of the creation of evil. The evil is so great on the island that the boys eventually split, the good and the evil. The hunters are the evil when Ralph and his friends are the good. The parting of the boys resulted in death, pain and savage. Simon projects the internal evil and fear of the boys. However Simon doesn’t share his feelings for the evil with the others. Within the story Simon is seen as the ‘Christ’ of the island.
He dies trying to give them the simple enlightenment that the beast they fear is non-existent. Simon makes the intuitive discovery that all the terrors on the island exist within the boys themselves, the psychological factor of the 'beast' that is their own imagination. Simon is seen as the Christ of the group, the sympathetic and caring one. In Chapter 3 we start to see some advancement in the building of their shelters and homes.
Simon’s secret place in the jungle brings him comfort and peace. However, once he has the profound realization of the inescapable evil in every human, Simon becomes delirious and ventures into a clearing, where he finds the parachutist, and eventually the beach, where he is brutally murdered. This shows the escalation of the level of savagery of the boys on the island. It is no coincidence that Golding put Simon’s death in a place where he was vulnerable – out of the comfort he felt in the jungle. In the passage that describes Simon’s death, he is described as “a thing…crawling out of the forest. It came darkly, uncertainly” (Golding 152). This shows that Simon is not his true self when he is separated from nature, and that he was uncomfortable and confused. Simon’s good, genuine character is shown best when he is directly connected to
The cost for a guide to bring someone up the mountain can be upwards to $70,000. People wanted to go regardless of their health and condition and guides would just do their job and just lead people up without knowing if they are weak or not ready for the climb.”Why did veteran Himalayan guides keep moving upward, ushering a gaggle of relatively inexperienced amateurs […] into an apparent death trap?”(Krakauer 8). This quote is an example of how the guides treat the people climbing up the mountain with the. They disregard the condition and state the people are and just keeping leading them up asking or knowing if they are weak and not ready for the climb up. Not only is this part of guide’s fault for people becoming injured or dead it is also the person’s fault for not thinking about themselves and the state and condition they are in to try to climb up the mountain.”It can't be stressed enough, moreover, that Hall, Fischer, and the rest of us were forced to make such critical decisions while severely impaired with hypoxia”(Krakauer 285). Jon Krakauer is responsible for some of the deaths of people mentioned in the book because of the decisions he made. Krakauer himself said he had guilt for not fully helping the people with hypoxia. The timing and decisions he made for descending back down also did play a role in how he caused some people to die instead of helping
Simon is very intelligent, and perhaps he is even more mature than the rest of the boys, but because of this, he gets blamed for everything, and the boys even end up killing him eventually. During one meeting, where the boys are discussing the “beast” on the island, Simon voices a controversial opinion, “...maybe it’s only us” (Golding 89). Simon could possibly be giving the boys a warning, saying that they are the true beasts. The boys immediately deny and ridicule Simon, which turns out to be incredibly ironic, because they later go on to literally tear him apart a few chapters later. But from the point that Simon makes that comment, all of the blame almost immediately shifts to
In chapter five, the boys begin to discuss the existence of a beast on the island. When asked what he thought about it, Simon replied with “what I mean is... maybe it’s only us” (Golding 89). The idea that the evil was not something to be feared in the jungle, but to be feared within themselves was not received wel...
The boys’ fear of the beast causes them to pay no attention to their morals and act savagely to defeat it. However, Simon is ultimately able to understand the beast and avoid savagery because his embrace of nature allows him to avoid any fears of the island. Simon demonstrates this lack of fear when he climbs the mountain by himself in order to find the beast, despite the dangers that might await him. The hunters and even Piggy and Ralph want to avoid the mountain because that is the last place where the beast was seen, but Simon seems to Once he reaches the top, he finds a physical beast, but not the kind the boys were expecting: a dead parachutist. The parachutist serves as an ironic symbol of Simon’s understanding; the monster the boys were afraid was a human. In contrast, Piggy displays immense fear throughout the novel, especially about Jack. For most of the story, his appreciation of logic and order help him remain civilized, but eventually his fears overcome him and he acts savagely the night of Simon’s murder. As Golding states, “[Piggy and Ralph] found themselves eager to take place in this demented but partly secure society….[the crowd] leapt on the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore” (136). After this occurrence and the theft of his glasses, Piggy decides to
There wasn’t any kind or response as they saw Simon get murdered in this moment, except expressing emotions of fear. They saw him, and knew it wasn’t the beast. No one stopped to help Simon, they let him die to the hands of Jack and his group of hunters. That also went along with another psychological factor. The boys were following whoever took charge which led them to be manipulated, or they were under blind obedience to authority. This quote of dialogue shows us that they were going to let a chief takeover decide things for them instead providing ideas themselves: “‘Seems to me we ought to have a chief to decide for things.’ ‘a chief!, a chief!’” (Golding 22). Clearly showing their willingness to have a leader and more importantly, to be led. This was only the beginning of the boys just following and needing a leader just because they couldn’t do anything, along with them being under the influence of fear. Everyone just followed whoever took charge and didn’t bother to weigh the pros and cons, or actually question if they were a good leader. They were so blinded and would do whatever it takes to survive. This also connecting to this next psychological
This quote shows the differences in interest between the two groups of the boys. One group, controlled by Jack, is in favor of being in control of the island and wants to play king. The other group, controlled by Ralph, wants to continue being a civilized group of people by focusing on being rescued and survival being prioritized over hunting. Jack sees the mountain as a form of leadership and power but Ralph wants to use it as a source of rescue. This exemplifies how the group is in disagreement, one group wants power and a new lifestyle as a tribe of hunting, while the other wants to be rescued and return to their homes.
1. After Simon is killed, the next paragraph begins, "The clouds open and let the rain down like a waterfall…" When the boys kill Simon they not only kill him and spirituality, but what they perceive to be the beast. Because the beast was created by them and embodied all of their evils, one of its interpretations can be as mankind's sin. Simon is very similar to Jesus in this book.
Thin air encompasses me as I commence the final day of skiing at Vail, Colorado. Seven days of skiing elapse rather painlessly; I fall occasionally but an evening in the Jacuzzi soothes my minor aches. Closing time approaches on the final day of our trip as I prepare myself for the final run of the vacation. Fresh off the ski lift, I coast toward the junction of trails on the unoccupied expert face of the mountain. After a moment of thought, I confidently select a narrow trail so steep that only the entrance can be seen from my viewpoint.