There are many connections between The Jungle and Looking for Alaska. One of those connections is that in both books, there are characters that want something just out of reach. They have a goal that they want to achieve, and they set their sights on it. However, when they can finally just reach out and touch it, it’s so close they can taste it, it moves away and they have to start the search all over again. “But at the time, I just saw Alaska up there. And it was big, just like I wanted to be. And it was damn far away from Vine Station, Alabama, just like I wanted to be.” (Green 53) During this quote Alaska was explaining to Miles why her name is Alaska. She told him that her parents decided to let her name herself when she was seven.
Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, describes the adventure of Christopher McCandless, a young man that ventured into the wilderness of Alaska hoping to find himself and the meaning of life. He undergoes his dangerous journey because he was persuade by of writers like Henry D. Thoreau, who believe it is was best to get farther away from the mainstreams of life. McCandless’ wild adventure was supposed to lead him towards personal growth but instead resulted in his death caused by his unpreparedness towards the atrocity nature.
The epigraphs presented by Krakauer before each chapter of the memoir Into the Wild dive deep into the life of Chris McCandless before and after his journey into the Alaskan wilderness. They compare him to famous “coming of age characters” and specific ideas written by some of his favorite philosophers. These give the reader a stronger sense of who Chris was and why he made the decision to ultimately walk alone into the wild.
To start with, McCandless was not someone who gave up. Despite others trying to scare him out of continuing with his journey into the Alaskan wilderness, nothing deterred McCandless. He anxiously awaited to experience life off the land. The people McCandless encountered on his way to Alaska often commented on his determination. Jim Gallien, a man who drove McCandless into the Alaska interior, described McCandless as “real gung-ho”. McCandless's attempt to undertake such a risky endeavour is something to admire in itself. To travel two years, mostly on foot, is certainly not an easy task. However, McCandless still persevered through the hardships he faced throughout his journey. McCandles...
Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer is a non-fiction book, based on the real story of Christopher McCandless, who in the April of 1992,set off alone into the Alaskan wild. He had given all his savings to charity, abandoned his car and his possessions. Unlike others, he wanted to live a life of independence, free from materialistic pleasures and filled with nature and it’s beauty. In addition, McCandless shed his legal name early in his journey, adopting the moniker ‘Alexander Supertramp’. He travelled a lot to places such as South Dakota, Salton City before hitchhiking to Alaska. Along his journey, he befriended few people whom he was in contact with till the end. McCandless
to explain his story before each chapter begins. This creates a unique way the author tells the story because the quotes he introduces are also similar to the theme of "survival" which Into The Wild is mostly based on. Firstly Jon Krakauer introduces a quote by Jack London which says, " It was a masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was Wild, the savage frozen hearted Northland Wild" (Krakauer, 9). This quote ties into the theme of the book which basically explains Chris's journey to Alaska. Another example of Jon Krakauer use of other other quotes is when he quotes about Anthony Storr as he say, "If we transfer this concept to adult life, we can see the avoidant infant might very well develop into a person whose principals need was to find some kind of meaning and order in life which was not entirely, or even chiefly,dependent upon interpersonal relationships" (Krakauer,61). This quote basically ex...
Thesis- In Jon Krakauer's nonfiction novel, Into the Wild, the wilderness is a natural home to seekers, a place free of the harm of a modern society, where a seeker can explore the lands and experience life by their own rules.
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
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.
In April of 1992 a young man named Chris McCandless made a daring journey into the wilderness of Alaska. Chris left his family and all of his belongings at home and left without anyone knowing. All alone Chris ventured out into the wild with minimal resources and the knowledge to survive. The harsh wilderness caused a very misfortunate end for Chris’s life. If Chris had any sense why would he go out in such a remote area with almost no humans?
Chris McCandless left his comfortable living for a crazy adventure into the deep forest of Alaska. No one will ever know why he did it, but there are a numerous reasons. Chris’s focus on adventure, freedom, solitude and his resistance against the government influenced him to leave his comfortable living to try to survive the wild.
In April of 1992 a young man named Chris McCandless, from a prosperous and loving family, hitchhiked across the country to Alaska. He gave $25,000 of his savings to charity, left his car and nearly all of his possessions. He burned all the cash he had in his wallet, and created a new life. Four months later, his body was found in an abandoned bus. Jon Krakauer constructed a journalistic account of McCandless’s story. Bordering on obsession, Krakauer looks for the clues to the mystery that is Chris McCandless. What he finds is the intense pull of the wilderness on our imagination, the appeal of high-risk activities to young men. When McCandless's mistakes turn out to be fatal he is dismissed for his naiveté. He was said by some to have a death wish, but wanting to die and wanting to see what one is capable of are too very different things. I began to ask myself if Chris really wasn’t as crazy as some people thought. Then I realized it was quite possible that the reason people thought he was crazy was because he had died trying to fulfill his dream. If he had walked away from his adventure like Krakauer, people would have praised him rather than ridicule. So I asked the question, “How does Krakauer’s life parallel Chris McCandlesses?”
In the novel “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer published in 1996, the protagonist Christopher McCandless abandons his old life and goes on a journey to Alaska as “Alexander Supertramp”. Told in the third person, The author addresses the theme by describing the settings of land across the country, establishing the main conflict of Chris preparing for the journey that would eventually lead to his death and incorporating the literary devices of allusion and imagery. Krakauer’s purpose was to show reader the life of Chris McCandless and why he went on the trip to Alaska. The author creates a mood of empathy since both had similar background and interests
Looking for Alaska is a book ,written by John Green. The main theme of the book is “Looking for the Great Perhaps.” In the first three chapters of the book, the main characters, Miles “Pudge” Halter, Chip “Colonel” Martin, and Alaska Young are introduced. Looking for Alaska is a story about a guy named Miles Halter who recently switched to a boarding in school in Alabama in order to find out who he really is as a person. At the boarding school, Miles becomes very close friends with his roommate, The Colonel, and a girl named Alaska Young. The Colonel is a very confident guy who’s pretty poor in money, but he’s rich in love and appreciation for people. Alaska is a very beautiful, yet strange girl who is fascinated with death and isn't afraid
Walking through the woods never fails to clear my mind. After spending all day sitting in a stale classroom, filled with stress, confusion, and overwhelming responsibilities, taking a long stroll through the familiar woods behind my grandmother’s house lifts any worries that could ever weigh me down. I never wander through aimlessly. I always follow the trail of grass that has been deliberately cut down shorter than the rest, making it easier to tread through to the small creek at the end of the trail. The entire journey through the woods behind my grandmother’s house, there and back, first took on a whole new importance in my life during my junior year of high school.