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California gold rush cause and effects
California gold rush cause and effects
Causes and effects of the gold rush
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The authors of “Klondike Gold Rush” by Gordon Stables and A Woman Who Went to Alaska by Meg Kellogg Sullivan are discussing the same topic but are using different points of view. Each person’s point of view shapes the reader’s understanding of the miners’ lives. The text “Klondike Gold Rush” tells the story through the point of view of a third person because the story has a narrator that knows everything that happens during the time . By having an all-knowing narrator, the reader gets the background knowledge of the gold rush, “the routes they took to get to the golden and the obstacles they had to face to get to the riches they have been looking for. They will also find out if they are going to be stuck rich or not. In the text it states,”The
Into the Wild by John Krakauer is a rare book in which its author freely admits his bias within the first few pages. “I won't claim to be an impartial biographer,” states Krakauer in the author’s note, and indeed he is not. Although it is not revealed in the author's note whether Krakauer's bias will be positive or negative, it can be easily inferred. Krakauer's explanation of his obsession with McCandless's story makes it evident that Into the Wild was written to persuade the reader to view him as the author does; as remarkably intelligent, driven, and spirited. This differs greatly from the opinion many people hold that McCandless was a simply a foolhardy kid in way over his head. Some even go as far as saying that his recklessness was due to an apparent death-wish. Krakauer uses a combination of ethos, logos and pathos throughout his rendition of McCandless’s story to dispute these negative outlooks while also giving readers new to this enigmatic adventure a proper introduction.
Many people were puzzled on why the young man decided to go on such an expedition without being properly prepared. His death has led to a controversy between whether he should be idolized for having the courage to follow his dream or repulsed for his grand stupidity. Although Krakauer never met McCandless, he provides his readers with personal examples that explain why the young man went on this journey. Expecting his readers to comprehend McCandless, Krakauer’s primary purpose is to help his readers understand the importance of embracing one's personal dreams. In order to achieve his purpose, he uses a variation of literary and rhetorical techniques. Some of these techniques include epigrams and ethos. These devices are essential to Krakauer’s purpose because they illustrate and explain the reasons why McCandless went into the inhospitable landscape of Alaska.
Upon hearing the news as everyone else did about the gold being discovered in California, the Wilsons started their journey. They traveled to California and the wife, Luzena Stanley Wilson, had recalled the events in her memoir, which was taken down by her daughter in 1881.
Into the Wild, written by John Krakauer tells of a young man named Chris McCandless who 1deserted his college degree and all his worldly possessions in favor of a primitive transient life in the wilderness. Krakauer first told the story of Chris in an article in Outside Magazine, but went on to write a thorough book, which encompasses his life in the hopes to explain what caused him to venture off alone into the wild. McCandless’ story soon became a national phenomenon, and had many people questioning why a “young man from a well-to-do East Coast family [would] hitchhike to Alaska” (Krakauer i). Chris comes from an affluent household and has parents that strived to create a desirable life for him and his sister. As Chris grows up, he becomes more and more disturbed by society’s ideals and the control they have on everyday life. He made a point of spiting his parents and the lifestyle they lived. This sense of unhappiness continues to build until after Chris has graduated college and decided to leave everything behind for the Alaskan wilderness. Knowing very little about how to survive in the wild, Chris ventures off on his adventure in a state of naïveté. It is obvious that he possessed monumental potential that was wasted on romanticized ideals and a lack of wisdom. Christopher McCandless is a unique and talented young man, but his selfish and ultimately complacent attitude towards life and his successes led to his demise.
In John Krakauer’s novel Into The Wild, the reader follows the life of a young man who, upon learning of his father’s infidelity and bigamy, seems to go off the deep end, isolating himself by traveling into the wild country of Alaska, unprepared for survival, where he died of starvation at 67 pounds.
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.
The California Gold Rush is one of the most interesting events in American, as well as, California History. The event gathered many in search of quick riches and opportunity globally. The opportunity of mining stretched American east coast influence to the West coast. Also bringing many from South America, Canada, and the Pacific Islands. Andrew Isenberg wrote, Mining in California: An Ecological History, which gives a detailed account of the California Gold rush and how it affected the California economy as well as California social environment during the 19th century. Isenberg conveys his argument in two parts throughout the book the economic side as well as the social side.
Rohrbough, Malcolm J. Days Of Gold: The California Gold Rush And The American Nation. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. eBook (EBSCOhost). Web. 26 Mar. 2014.
I had never been very fond of American history less likely about topics as such, but this chapter was quite very interesting. It gave me a better perspective of all the things that happened in the state of California during this prosperous period. I would have never thought that people would begin leaving their everyday working tools in order to form part of this gold fever epidemic. I even laughed a little when the book said that even handicapped people wanted part in it. The Gold Rush did help to bust the state’s economic follow, but it also brought with it work
...bout or having heard of the Gold Rush (Hall). The sentimental tone of this story is very important as the feeling of excessive emotion is tempered by humor (Morrow). This story was so vivid, though only ten pages, that it made readers feel the presence of the mining camp without being there (Morrow). How a writer could do that in only ten pages was beyond the reach of any critic who analyzed the text. After reading this story, you also knew how a forty-niner thought and felt (Schraufnagel). If written at a later time, at worst this story was easily a Pulitzer Prize winner (Morrow).
The author tied in the Russian incursion across the Aleutians southward and the Spanish colonization northward across California and Alaska, and near the very end, tells how Captain Cook arrived on the east coast in the middle
During the late 1850’s to the early 1860’s, multiple gold rushes occurred. The Oregon Gold rush happened in the 1850’s. Then the Pikes Peak Gold Rush happened in the 1850’s. People went to
John Steinbeck was born in 1902. He lived and grew up during the Great Depression near Salinas Valley and wrote many novels based on his experiences and backgrounds. Due to conditions such as nice weather and good agricultural industry, many people settled there. There was a gold rush around the 1850s which attracted many people to this region. The Salinas Valley was a very significant and essential place in the 1930s.
Gordon Stables, author of “Klondike Gold Rush” uses a third person omniscient narrator to explain their point of view. By having an all-knowing narrator , the reader is able to understand the challenges the miners faced and background knowledge on the gold rush.The author says,”Locals had already claimed all of the gold-bearing creeks and claims of “gold for the taking” were grossly exaggerated”(Stables, 9). This is one of the many difficultes the miners’
A story that is told in 1st person includes the personal thoughts of the narrator. Since this novel is told with 1st person narration by Huck, the reader gets a look of the pre-civil war era thru the eyes of a