While nonfiction has many sub-categories as a genre, most outline a person overcoming adversity to complete a goal. This idea is displayed in Richard Wright’s Black Boy, and Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild. Both books tell the story of an ultimate goal and the path to achieving this. Richard Wright and Chris McCandless both have virtuous and negative qualities, but they ultimately achieved their goals. Black Boy tells the story of Richard Wright, a boy growing up in the south and facing innumerable struggles due to his race and personality. Richard’s goal is to complete school and earn enough money to move north for a better life. At home, he is constantly facing verbal and physical abuse from his aunt, uncle, and grandmother. Richard’s best …show more content…
Throughout the book he shows great ambition and also the tendency to be self-centered. Chris harbors a lot of resentment toward his father for having a second family, which he only discusses with his sister rather than his parents. Around the time of his college graduation, he seems to have a good relationship with his parents and remained very close with his sister. He took off after this, with seemingly no recognition of his beloved sister or his parents. Chris never contacts his family again, which will in turn leaving them to wonder what they did wrong. Along with this selfishness, Chris shows a somewhat deliberate ignorance towards basic survival skills such as appropriate gear and food. “ He had no ax, no bug dope, no snowshoes, no compass. The only navigational aid in his possession was a tattered state road map he’s scrounged at a gas station.”(5). It is proven early on that Chris is very intelligent and has a natural talent for outdoor tasks. With this background, Chris would have undoubtedly known the conditions of the Alaskan wilderness and what supplies he would need. These actions show that Chris is over confident in his abilities. He had developed an inflated view of outdoor survival due to extensively reading books by authors such as Jack London. “He was so enthralled by these tales, however, that he seemed to forget they were works of fiction, …show more content…
Richard’s goal was to earn enough money to travel north, away from the cruel south that he had lived in his whole life. While attempting to complete his education and pursue his passion for writing, Richard has to work hard in many different jobs, trying to earn enough money for a train ticket. Along with all of these actions, Richard has to face racism everywhere he goes. “I begged them not to hit me. I knew what they wanted. They wanted me to leave the job.”(190). Richard overcame the obstacles in the way of making it north and moved to Memphis. Here, he continued to work just as he had done before. Things are a bit better but he still faces adversity in his work and trying to make enough to continue north. Finally after working through hunger and prejudice, Richard is able to buy a ticket to the north. “This was the culture from which I sprang. This was the terror from which I fled.”(257). Like Richard, Chris also obtains his goal. Chris wanted to make it to Alaska with no money and limited supplies and live in the wild. It can be debated whether or not he actually achieved his goal fully, but he does show a great strength in this situation. While travelling north, Chris makes many close connections to people he meets along the way. “’He had a good time when he was around people, a real good time. At the swap meet
According to the book Into The Wild and Chris’s parents “there was always a little wanderlust in the family, and it was clear early on that Chris had inherited it” (108). Billie’s dad Loren Johnson and Chris both loved the wildlife, Loren was charmed by Chris and Chris adored his grandfather When Chris was eight Walt took him on a mountain climbing trip where he carried his own backpack, hiking the mountains became a father-son tradition. While on his trip to Alaska many people that he meet offered him stuff so he could survive there but he would always deny their offer. One person that had offered him rice did not accept a “no” so Chris was forced to take it. The last person to see Chris on his journey was a union electrician called Jim Gallien. Jim was on his way to Anchorage, Jim thought Chris was crazy to think he could survive in the forests of Alaska, but Chris’s love for nature and his adventurous spirit were too strong to fear all the warnings people kept telling him. From just these few things that Chris was introduced to made him love the wild and he became
The transition of being a black man in a time just after slavery was a hard one. A black man had to prove himself at the same time had to come to terms with the fact that he would never amount to much in a white dominated country. Some young black men did actually make it but it was a long and bitter road. Most young men fell into the same trappings as the narrator’s brother. Times were hard and most young boys growing up in Harlem were swept off their feet by the onslaught of change. For American blacks in the middle of the twentieth century, racism is another of the dark forces of destruction and meaninglessness which must be endured. Beauty, joy, triumph, security, suffering, and sorrow are all creations of community, especially of family and family-like groups. They are temporary havens from the world''s trouble, and they are also the meanings of human life.
If Chris was better prepared, he may have been able to survive and a live the life he wanted to in the Alaskan wild. “His rifle was only .22 caliber, a bore too small to rely on if he expected to kill large animals like moose and caribou, which he would have to eat if he hoped to remain very long in the country. He had no ax, no bug dope, no snowshoes, no compass.” (Krakauer 5) Seeing that within the first couple of pages, Jim Gallien had pointed out that his supplies were not enough to sustain a long period of time in the wild, this should have been a red flag for Chris even before he went into the wilderness. In Roberts article called “Jon Krakauer + Sean Penn: Back Into the Wild”, Roberts quotes Krakauer’s original magazine article that talks to the hunters that found Chris’s body. "The kid didn't know what the hell he was doing up here” The hunters did not personally know Chris and did not meet him in person and they could tell by evidence only that Chris McCandless was not suited to live in the Alaskan Wilderness.
A young man, in his twenties, sets off into the wild completely disregarding his family and his past life and takes on a whole new personality. This perfectly explains Chris McCandless and the journey that he initially set out on. He was a young man seeking self-acceptance and peace, and he looked for it in all of the different places that he visited. Visiting these places made Chis more and more hungry for a challenge. He planned on leaving the comfort of a home and setting out into the Alaskan wilderness, where he would eventually die. Many wonder what lead McCandless to his death and there are many different theories. Chris McCandless was motivated by guilt to go to Alaska, and although he died of starvation, his father’s abusive nature
Black Boy, which was written by Richard Wright, is an autobiography of his upbringing and of all of the trouble he encountered while growing up. Black Boy is full of drama that will sometimes make the reader laugh and other times make the reader cry. Black Boy is most known for its appeals to emotions, which will keep the reader on the edge of his/her seat. In Black Boy Richard talks about his social acceptance and identity and how it affected him. In Black Boy, Richard’s diction showed his social acceptance and his imagery showed his identity.
Within the autobiography Black Boy, written by Richard Wright, many proposals of hunger, pain, and tolerance are exemplified by Wright’s personal accounts as a child and also as an adolescent coming of manhood. Wright’s past emotions of aspirations along with a disgust towards racism defined his perspective towards equality along with liberal freedom; consequently, he progressed North, seeking a life filled with opportunity as well as a life not judged by authority, but a life led separately by perspective and choices.
Richard Wright’s “Big Boy Leaves Home” confronts a young black person’s forced maturation at the hands of unsympathetic whites. Through his almost at times first person descriptions, Wright makes Big Boy a hero to us. Big Boy hovers between boyhood and adulthood throughout the story, and his innocence is lost just in time for him to survive. Singled out for being larger than his friends, he is the last to stand, withstanding bouts with white men, a snake, and a dog, as we are forced to confront the different levels of nature and its inherent violence.
In Krakauer's book, it talks about how Chris doesn’t always have enough to eat. He struggled to find game to eat. Some game he did come across was too big to kill as he only had a .22 rifle with him which was to small to kill the large animals of Alaska. Chris did bring a book of natural plants to eat, but that didn't help when he first got there due to the frozen ground. In the film adaptation of the book directed by Sean Penn, Chris is shown having similar struggles. Chris does kill a moose but due to his inexperience, he does not get the meat stored properly and it spoils. Chris is shown trying to leave in the film, but the Teklanika river was too strong. After the incident with the moose, Chris went to harvesting plants. Due to the lack of food in his system, Chris wrongly identifies a poisonous plant and eats it. Now he really needs to leave but the poison keeps him physically unable to do so. In Mary Oliver’s The Journey, the narrator talks of a bad storm they were in. They were out in the wild when the storm came around, and as his body wanted to stay and take shelter he knew otherwise. His mind was determined to escape the storm and escape the
...e wilderness.” Krakauer stats this in the book to explain what Chris was up against walking into the wilderness. No ordinary man would do this to survive out on his own facing the wilderness. Kleinfeld made an extraordinary remark in her article “McCandless: Hero or Dumb Jerk” “Jon Krakauer's best seller "Into the Wild" immortalizes this young man, who walked into the wilderness with no map, no ax, no mosquito repellent and no first aid equipment.” She makes a good statement about his bravery because not many men would go out with no supplies to make them survive. He went out by himself, no supplies and try to pull off to live in the wild.
Many people thought that Chris had no idea what he was doing and that he was very unprepared. In an article, written by Peter Christian, an Alaska Park Ranger, he talks about how Chris was unprepared for his trip: “First off, he spent very little time learning how to actually live in the wild. He arrived at the Stampede Trail without even a map of the area. If he had a good map he could have walked out of his predicament using one of several routes that could have been successful. …A bag of rice and a sleeping bag do not constitute adequate gear and provisions for a long stay in the wilderness.” Christian believed that Chris was very unprepared and if he would have had a map, he could have made it out of the wild alive. No one really knows if Chris could have, indeed, made it out using the map. But it could have helped him find one of three cabins located within a few miles of the bus. Christian also points out that a bag o...
In order to survive in the wild you must be prepared for any hardships and problems which occur. Some of these hardships are the drastic changes in weather and surviving in them. Chris McCandless did not prepare for these drastic changes in weather, such as, layering his clothes or wearing insulated boots that can withstand the cold. Gallien said, “His gear seemed exceedingly minimal for the harsh conditions of the interior, which in April still lay buried under the winter snowpack” (Krakauer 5). Also, Chris McCandless did not have enough knowledge about training on how to survive in the wild because he lived a civilized life. Although he did have a gun, it was not suitable for killing animals for food. For instance, Gallien said, “ His rifle was only .22 caliber, a bore too small to rely on if he expected to kill large animals like moose and caribou, which he would have to eat if he hoped to remain very long in the country” (Krakauer 5). This is one reason why I believe Chris entered the wild to perish.
Living in the wilderness is difficult, but understanding the meaning of such lifestyle is even more difficult. One of the Christopher’s admirable qualities was that he was well aware of what he was doing. He knew about the difficulties and dangers that he would face into the wilderness, and was mentally prepared for that. Author Jon Krakauer says that “McCandless was green, and he overestimated his resilience, but he was sufficiently skilled to last for sixteen weeks on little more than his wits and ten pounds of rice. And he was fully aware when he entered the bush that he had given himself a perilously slim margin for error. He knew precisely what was at stake” (182). McCandless was an educated youth, who loved nature and dreamed of living in the Alaskan wilderness. Although he ignored to take many necessary things with him on this
In 1992, Christopher McCandless set off on an odyssey into the backcountry of Alaska, an adventure that had proved fatal. After McCandless's corpse was found, Jon Krakauer wrote an article on the story of Chris McCandless, which was released in the January 1993 issue of Outside magazine. The article had received a negative response; several readers criticized McCandless for being foolish and ill-prepared, and showed no sympathy or remorse for his death. McCandless has been referred to as a nut, a kook, and a fool. However, McCandless was not a nonsensical man. In 1996, Jon Krakauer's novel, Into the Wild, was published. The novel uncovers more detail of McCandless's story. Into the Wild rebuts the idea of McCandless being someone who is foolish, and speaks of the many occasions where McCandless has demonstrated great perseverance and determination. The novel also proves the intelligence of McCandless, and brings insight into McCandless's psyche. The following examples will illustrate how McCandless was not a fool, but someone to admire.
... every aspect of his life whether it be his education, physical endurance, or making it through the Alaskan wilderness with nothing more than a rifle, a backpack, and a road map. Chris was aware of his differences and that he did not fit into society. He fully embraced that and and chose to lead his own path. Chris led a happy life according to one of his last journal entries he wrote, “I have had a happy life and thank the lord. Goodbye and may God bless all!” (Krakauer 199). Chris was willing to risk everything to gain that happiness. His ambition to enter the wilderness, in the end, took his life but that did not stop him. He would have rather died a happy man than lived a miserable one. Chris ventured out into the wilderness and found himself; a tragic story for a tragic hero.
Published in 1945, Richard Wright's autobiographical novel Black Boy was to prove the contrary. It documented prejudice and oppression caused by the Jim Crow laws in the Deep South in the early twentieth century. It is an account of the difficult road of an African American, who was convinced to have greater destiny than that of a stereotypical black person, the white people tried to transform him into.