Analysis Of Into Thin Air-In May Of 1996, By Jon Krakauer

The American perspective on nature is that we want control over nature, we take what we want from nature at the expense of ourselves and all other life within nature.

E and T- Poets see a tree as a beautiful gift to cherish, but the wood-cutter only sees it as a stick of timber (Emerson). Emerson acknowledges that some people appreciate nature, but most people would have forests cut down because we care more about what we can gain materially from the destruction of our planet than by what we can gain spiritually by loving nature as we do ourselves. The transcendentalists would rather everyone live in nature with the bare necessities, but they know that society would rather have electricity, housing, and other material goods than reaching enlightenment.

Into Thin Air- In May of 1996, Jon Krakauer was “straddling the top of the world… [he’d] been fantasizing about this moment” (Thin Air).

Every climber on that expedition, including Jon, knew that climbing Everest was potentially fatal, yet every one of them dreamed about being on top of the summit. Eight people died on May 11th 1996 when a storm came out of nowhere. The climbers put their desire to play king-of-the-world over their own safety, and many climbers suffered death as as result. Going into the most merciless of landscapes for fun when there is such a big risk shows that people gamble their lives for a few stories and a sense of accomplishment. Human beings are a part of nature just like any other animal, and we need to respect our lives and nature without being so self-absorbed that we put ourselves in death’s

way.

Old Man- The old man apologizes to now the half-eaten by whispering “I shouldn’t have come out so far fish. Neither for you nor for me” (Hemingway 110). Though Santiago seems to normally only takes what he needs, such an experienced fisherman should’ve known better than to let a big fish drag him far away from the shore. With all of his wisdom, he would’ve known that a fish of that strength would be impossible to haul onto the boat, leaving it vulnerable to the sharks in the ocean. We can assume that his pride and desperation got in the way of clear thinking. His desire to kill the great fish and change his luck was too great, and he killed the fish with nothing to show for it. Many fisherman would’ve probably let the fish go after losing sight of land. However Santiago followed his pride to the open sea where he knew that hungry sharks lurked, letting his prize slip away, thus the fish died in vain.

Poetry- In the poem Birches, Frost describes how he “was once a swinger of branches” in the sense that when he was a child he would climb to the top of trees and swing until his weight dragged him down and the top of the tree touched the ground. This would leave the trees bent and deformed, but the sight of bent trees made Frost feel a happy sense of nostalgia. Frost would swing on the trees despite the harm that this would cause to the trees. He put his own desire to have fun over his respect for the environment around him.

Ted Talk- The speaker in the video An Inconvenient Truth refers to the greenhouse gases that we create by burning fossil fuels for electricity and energy. These gases build up our ozone, trapping infrared rays and heated up the atmosphere. Humans use increasingly bigger amounts of natural resources every year to satisfy their insatiable desires. Many people ignore the thought of global warming, but using so much energy is dangerous to every living thing on Earth, yet we continue to create greenhouse gases as more and more heat is trapped by the Ozone. We take resources and energy without giving a second thought about the consequences about how our actions affect the world.