There are fifty-three fourteen thousand foot peaks in colorado. Aron Ralston is one of only a few people who climbed these peaks in solo attempts during the winter. However, that is not the only adventure, he has climbed countless mountains and hiked all over the world. In some of these journeys he choses to go alone but in many of them people from all walks of life join him. Aron could be described as an adventurer or a free spirit and some people have gone so far to say that he is a transcendentalist. A transcendentalist is a person who strays from the normal path of life and creates their own. After, reading the book Between a Rock and a Hard Place and learning about Aron’s lifestyle and personality, it can be determined that he does not …show more content…
One must be able to make things happen for themselves because people are untrustworthy and only have their own self interests in mind. One's needs will always take second place to the person who is supposed to make your dreams come true. Aron Ralston talks a lot about how self reliant he is in the book. When one is stuck in a slot canyon a hundred feet below the ground they should be pretty self reliant. However, in order to be classified as transcendentalist one must be self reliant throughout their life not just in a crisis. When Aron is stuck he persistently calls upon memories to guide him. A transcendentalist would not rely on the advice of others because they “trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string”(Emerson). Aron doubts his ability to survive towards the middle of the book and contemplates giving up. Furthermore, he repeatedly utilizes the same techniques to get out: chipping away at the rock, making a pulley system, lifting the boulder and cutting off his arm. All those solutions except for amputation lead to the same result; he was still stuck in the canyon. Furthermore, on other adventures he follows the lead of more experienced climbers instead of making his own way up the mountain. Aron is not self reliant because when he goes on adventures us uses the guidance of others instead of what his own
In the film Into the Wild directed by Sean Penn, viewers may have gathered enough evidence to back up their thoughts on Christopher McCandless being a transcendentalist or a non-transcendentalist. Chris portrayed the effort of being a transcendentalist just as Ralph Waldo Emerson and David Thoreau did. He abandoned his nice life to hitchhike all over North America and he was happy about it. McCandless unfortunately died in the wilderness of Alaska after he had eaten moldy seeds. Sooner or later, that mistake was enough to end his life. He shows behavior of being a Transcendentalist by the ways that he despised society, burned his money after he abandoned his car, and went out to Alaska on his own.
In Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, he retells the story of a young man named Chris McCandless by putting together interviews, speaking with people who knew him, and using letters he writes to his companions. Chris McCandless also known as Alexander Supertramp is a bright young man and after graduating from Emory University with all honors, he abandons most of his possessions and travels around the west, making long lasting impact on whomever he meets. He then hitchhikes to Alaska where he is found dead. In chapter 14 and 15, both named “Stikine Ice Cap”, Jon Krakauer interrupts the boy's story and shares his anecdote of going to Alaska to climb a dangerous mountain called the Devils Thumb. Krakaure’s purpose is to refute the argument that McCandless is mentally ill because many others, like Krakauer have tried to “go into the wild” but they are lucky to survive unlike McCandless. While describing his climb, Krakauer exhibits through the descriptions of and uncertainty about personal relationships.
Chris McCandless was a young man from Washington, D.C.. In an effort to live closer to nature, he abandoned his life and education at university studying. He gave his life savings to a charity and started hitchhiking and traveling for almost two years. He eventually finds himself in Alaska, where he lived for four months before he unfortunately died due to starvation. McCandless’ journey was in tune with the movement of transcendentalism, a movement in which its founders were a strong inspiration to Chris. Chris McCandless was very in tune with his surrounding and the nature within it and his connection with it. A turning
Transcendentalism is a religious, philosophical, literary, and social movement of the nineteenth century. Essentially, this movement was based upon the ideals of the “sixth sense,” nature, and non-conformity, as well as individualism, intuition, idealism, imagination, and inspiration. A few of the works and writings featured in the transcendental unit include Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, The Beatification of Chris McCandless: From Thieving Poacher into Saint by Craig Medred, and Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson. The primary focus of this essay is to provide an opinion on a strikingly debatable topic; Whether or not Christopher McCandless, hero of Krakauer’s Into the Wild, was a true transcendentalist. Despite the bold actions of Chris McCandless on his daring Alaskan odyssey, he turned out to be far from a true transcendentalist, failing to meet the definition of transcendentalism, being solely concerned with himself, and acting out of revenge rather than seeking self discovery - nothing more than a childish suicidal rebel.
People in modern day society should learn from past transcendentalists and engage in the concept of solitude. Henry David Thoreau and Chris McCandless were both transcendentalists that believed in the key fundamental idea of solitude. Henry Thoreau was a transcendentalist that practiced the form of solitude throughout his life. Later in his life, he left society and moved into woods to be alone. Henry David Thoreau wrote a book called, Walden where he recalled important lessons and ideas that his master Ralph Waldo Emerson taught him about transcendentalism. Along with Thoreau, a more modern-day transcendentalist was known as Chris McCandless. McCandless journeyed to the wilderness in Alaska to be able to experience a minimal amount of human
...r the inspiration he requires to learn more about himself. Finally, McCandless follows his own intuition to the point of death. These ideas presented by McCandless not only demonstrate transcendental ideals, but the fathers of transcendentalism themselves lives closely resembling that of Christopher Johnson McCandless, a man who desired to live as close to nature as possible; however, volition alone could not save him from his unintentionally self-inflicted demise.
Thoreau wrote, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” The words transformed people’s lives to think more of the why in life and live with a purpose not just do what they are told, which was a driving idea within the Transcendentalist movements. Transcendentalist were hard to define, but perhaps one of the fathers of transcendentalism Ralph Waldo Emerson defines it most gracefully in a speech he gave, “The Transcendentalist adopts the whole connection of spiritual doctrine, He believes in miracle, in the perpetual openness of the human mind to new influx of light and power: he believes in inspiration, and in ecstasy”. As Emerson’s key student and self-proclaimed Transcendentalist Thoreau fulfilled these requirements to help further this movement of higher
Transcendentalism is living and communicating simply and in nature to find yourself. Chris McCandless can be seen as a transcendentalist in the book Into the Wild. Jon Krakauer tells the story of Christopher McCandless, who in June of 1990, set out on an adventure around the continent. After traveling all over and living on his own for two years, Chris decides to hitchhike up north to live off the Alaskan coast, 4 months later, Christopher was found dead. Though Chris’s adventure was fatal, his beliefs and actions throughout the book were undoubtable those of a transcendentalist.
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.
Many people have theories and philosophies about life in general. There have been countless amounts of books published by countless amounts of people on the ideas of people in the past and the present. Transcendentalism falls into a sector of all of these ideas. Transcendentalism has affected many people since the philosophy was first introduced. Henry Thoreau is a name that is always associated with transcendentalism through one of his famous novels,Walden. John Krakauer is able to explain how transcendentalism has affected Chris McCandless in the novel Into The Wild. McCandless's life is comparable to Thoreau's in a variety of ways such as motives, however both McCandless and Thoreau's lives are much different by means such as their reasons for traveling, and what they did.
Ralph Waldo Emerson is known as the father of Transcendentalism, a philosophical movement based on feelings rather than logic, it is a movement for the nonconformists and unique thinkers. Transcendentalism’s main ideas are individualism, intuition, imagination, idealism, and inspiration. When Emerson created the movement in the nineteenth century he was a well known writer and is still today a prominent figure in American Literature. Christopher McCandless was also a transcendentalist. He left everything he had in order to go on a great Alaskan voyage. Unfortunately, during his journey, something went wrong and he died due to uncertain causes. McCandless is also the protagonist of the nonfiction novel, Into the Wild which Jon Krakauer wrote about McCandless’s life. Emerson and McCandless show similarities with each other such as their transcendental thinking, their individuality, and their life goal of searching for their identity.
The novel “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer goes into great detail to describe the main character, Chris McCandless, who died traveling alone into the Alaskan wilderness. McCandless, whom in the novel renamed himself Alex, left his home and family to travel to Alaska in 1992. In Alaska McCandless planned to live an isolated life in the desolate wilderness, but unfortunately he did not survive. This non-fiction novel portrays his life leading up to his departure and it captures the true essence of what it means to be “in the wild”.
Transcendentalism, a philosophy that began in the 19th century, advocates that humans are naturally good and all individuals have potential. In high school, developing into a unique and self-assured person can be a difficult task. Students feel the need to be accepted by their peers and standing out against the crowd can be difficult. Students should be exposed to transcendentalist ideas would be able to fight this battle and leave high school unscathed. Many argue that transcendentalist beliefs cause problems as students cannot think for themselves at a young age. However, students who do not think for themselves while in high school will never develop the ability to think for themselves. The morals and beliefs of a student should not be handed to them on a silver platter the way there are in realist teachings. Instead, they must discover and test their beliefs. Although some argue transcendentalism would cause students to rebel, students in high school should embrace transcendentalist ideas as students would be more likely to believe in their capabilities, rely less on the opinion of others, and find their own way of thinking.
Christopher McCandless, also known as Alex Supertramp, was an avid explorer who many thought shared the beliefs of a transcendentalist. According to oxforddictionaries.com, transcendentalism is an “idealistic philosophical and social movement that developed in New England around 1836 in reaction to rationalism. Influenced by Romanticism, Platonism, and Kantian philosophy, it taught that divinity pervades all nature and humanity, and its members held progressive views on feminism and communal living.” Chris admired many of the transcendentalists and shared their traits. Chris often studied Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau and inscribed quotes from them in his diary and etched quotes into the walls of the bus where he died. Transcendentalists often exhume the traits of spirituality, individuality, intuition, optimism, rebellion, and minimalism. Chris exhibited these transcendentalist traits in many ways throughout the book, Into the Wild.
Transcendentalism is about connecting with nature. Mark Twain influences these aspects of transcendentalism with his masterpiece The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. However in today's society students and teachers view the novel as being obscene. Which is because society is ruling their lives. Their view The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain as a racist novel but they miss the transcendental aspects of it such as the society of the time, Huck’s beliefs and Huck’s actions.