Idealism In Into The Wild

Upon first glance, Into the Wild looks as if it were about another idealistic man turning insane, by simply separating himself from the rest of humanity. However, upon further inspection, the novel is truly an intricately-woven metaphor symbolizing the inescapable order of the world and the possibility to choose one’s path in life, so long as one is determined enough to make that happen (Krakauer, 146). Furthermore, the film The Falling Man, directed by Henry Singer, explores a very similar concept: How can one control the final moments of their life? Singer uses 9/11, an infamous terrorist attack on the World Trade Center Towers in New York, as a medium to express himself and his desire to discover and delve into the amount of control humans

have over their own deaths (Singer). He delves into the choice the people in the North Trade Center Tower had to face: To jump and meet a swift end, or to suffocate and burn alive. While both of these mediums for expression analyze a variety of concepts, a major chord struck by both of pieces is life choices. Not only do both works evaluate the ways in which people live their lives, but they examine how victims choose to meet their end, and the reactions of the people around them upon realizing that their choice has been made.
When people go through life, they make choices everyday; and while the outcomes of those choices may never be known, people must continue making them, for without choices, one does not truly live.

This is shown many times throughout history, most notably through a man named Chris McCandless (Krakauer, 203). In fact, sometimes one is even allowed to choose how they die, and while to most that is to be feared, to others, it is a beautiful thing to be able to choose to die painlessly (Singer). While most people will not interpret making choices to mean running away and living in the wild with little to no supplies, that is how both Chris McCandless and Jon Krakauer interpreted it to be (Krakauer, 143). However, on the other side of the spectrum, there is the concept of choosing how to die (Singer). On the fateful day of September 11th, 2001, hundreds of people had to make an impossible choice: be burned alive in the growing fire, or fly for a few seconds, and meet their end painlessly on the ground (Singer). While it is certainly a horrifying and gruesome way to die, when there is no other options left, most find it a necessary choice to make (Singer). Being human means having self control and the ability to resist blind acceptance of outside influences. Singer explores this concept through interviews with the spouses of those who passed in the North Tower, and creates an atmosphere that truly questions the decisions made by those souls on 9/11. One man stated that he thought his wife experienced a sensation akin to flying, and hoped she died knowing her family loved her

(Singer).
With that being said, both writers place a heavy emphasis not on life or death itself, but how exactly an individual chooses to reach those destinations. Some might not agree with McCandless or the jumpers on the day the World Trade Center Towers collapsed, but what was important was that it was their decision, and every decision has its own consequences. Both authors build up the literal concept of choice, how it affects us in our day to day lives, and our inevitable deaths. While life and death are both drastically different, how one gets to those points depends only on them. Some might not agree with McCandless’s actions (Krakauer, 71), but what was important was that they were his own. Some might shiver at the thought of falling over 100 stories to the ground and would much rather prefer the fire and smoke, but that was not their decision to make. Everything a person does, everything they choose to do, is their decision alone, whether it ends with living or dying.
In his novel, Into the Wild, Krakauer discusses the personalities and hardships of the people that Chris McCandless met on his journey to Alaska, in order to invoke emotions in the reader by showcasing their thoughts. However, in the movie The Falling Man, Singer leaves the identities of the falling men and women a mystery, as this makes them symbolic of the horror and destruction of 9/11. Containing symbols in his film opens up his audience to a much broader range of people, and causes his film to have many themes. One of those themes was that while making choices is inevitable, it is a type of freedom that is incredibly valuable (Singer). The idea of choosing how an individual lives and dies is in of itself a priceless thing. Usually, people do not have an option in choosing how they die, and while that is not exactly something to be joyous about, it it still manages to provide a gratifying sensation. Some poor people in the World Towers were not trapped next to a window and had no choice but to suffer being burned alive or slowly suffocated (Singer). This brings up the notion that both works, in their own strange ways, state the exact same thing: Choice is the most human thing we can do, and without it, we are not human, but we are simple-minded animals. This overarching idea expands into the many plot points of Into the Wild, such as when Krakauer decided to hike up the mountain, despite his colleagues and father telling him that it was nearly impossible and he might die in the process (Krakauer, 142). Moreover, in The Falling Man, Singer expresses that the people in the North Tower had to choose whether to die painfully, or to die quickly. This ties into Into the Wild due to its emphasis on the matter of human choice, and the fact that without, our lives are controlled by our environments, and not ourselves (Krakauer, 47).
“But he did not confront his parents with what he knew, then or ever. He chose instead to make a secret of his dark knowledge and express his rage obliquely, in silence and sullen withdrawal,” (Krakauer, 123). This section of Into the Wild refers to McCandless deciding to keep to himself about the intimate knowledge he had learned about his father having cheated on his mother. This perfectly encompasses Krakauer’s theme of having to make human choices and sacrifices in order to keep ourselves and our peers happy. However, this also signifies the darker theme of having to decide whether or not to make a decision based upon the reactions of those around you.
When discussing a topic as deep as the prospect of human choice, an author’s style plays an extremely key role in their delivery of information. Into the Wild is structured in a way that presents big ideas first, instead of a series of events in chronological order. Furthermore, Krakauer uses simple diction to ensure that a person of any age is able to understand his ideas. This causes Into the Wild to be a thought-provoking novel for a person of any age, and bridges the gap between Krakauer’s purpose in writing the novel and the level of writing that it works at. Krakauer uses style to portray his purpose, which is to inform his audience of why adventurers leave the comforts of their homes, and how they survive in the wilderness. n the other hand, The Falling Man uses dramatic diction to portray a scene of chaos and turmoil. Singer’s style of direction leads him to make his film use interviews with the spouses of families and to organize them in such a way that they overlap in their ideas and emotions (Singer). All of this aids Singer in portraying his purpose, which is to inform the reader of the horrors of 9/11 and to discuss the importance of making choices, as they may be our last.
As we go through our lives, we make choices each day, some of them good, and others bad. According to Jon Krakauer and Henry Singer, in order to be human, we must make choices, and without choices, we are nothing. Into the Wild uses descriptive words to denote emotions and actions, and the book attempts to appeal to the emotional side of us, which makes it an ethos-based work. On the other hand, there is The Falling Man, which relies extremely heavily on ethos to invoke understanding for the characters in the film, and then uses logos to display the reasoning behind the choices that most people made when the North Tower fell. Even though we make choices all throughout our lives, it is necessary to truly reflect each day on the choices that one made, and decide if they were truly the right thing to do, because they might have made or broken another’s day.