In Heroes of the Frontier by Dave Eggers, the main character, Josie, takes her kids to Alaska in order to escape the hardships of everyday life. In her mind, she sees Alaska as a beautiful state where there are no struggles financially and people can live as their ancestors once did. Yet as she delves into the Alaskan lifestyle, she realizes that her problems are inescapable, and everywhere she goes she will experience some new difficulty.
Connections can be drawn between Heroes of the Frontier and Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, as both of the main characters go to Alaska to liberate themselves from society, but only find more hardships in their journey. In Into the Wild, Christopher McCandless can no longer deal with his family problems and
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hates how much people care about insignificant issues. When he travels into the wild, he takes it a step further than Josie does and completely isolates himself from society. Josie may have also wanted to do this, but she was obligated to take care of her two kids. Yet in the end Josies children pile rocks on her, and when she asks them to take the rocks off of her, she feels as if a weight from her past life has been lifted off of her. Eggers writes, “They were just stones, and she was only sitting by a lake shushing the jagged shore, but each time her children lifted one she let out a tiny gasp, and her body felt closer to release” (365). Josie finally feels free from the problems and chaos that plagued her life, just as McCandless felt free in the bus away from humanity. When people are forced to only rely on themselves, it is freeing and as shown by Josie and McCandless, Alaska is a great place to free oneself. While McCandless was a real person and Josie is fictional, both see Alaska as a place separate from the rest of the world. Yet they both come to realize that they cannot live as their ancestors once did, in many ways they will have to rely on others. Josie relied on her RV to be able to move around quickly while McCandless relied on the bus for shelter. Josie views that Alaskan frontier as an open space where her troubles from her past cannot follow her. Her ex-husband Carl can no longer be a burden on her, and she can escape the town where she was accused of malpractice. Yet when she reaches Alaska, the prices are high and she slowly realizes Alaska is not all she thought it would be. Even in her first moments in Alaska, she is pulled over by the cops for breaking the law. She cannot escape the things that plague her everyday life. Just like Chris McCandless, Josie expected to find serenity in Alaska, but was only disappointed in the Alaskan truth.
Josie had a reliance of humanity, just as humanity relied on her and she could never escape it.
Role reversal
In Heroes of the Frontier by Dave Eggers, the author creates many different characters in order to create stronger characteristics and personalities for his main characters. Eggers uses inversion to further his character development and argue against the stereotyping of people.
Eggers inverts Josie’s kids from the stereotypical roles of boys and girls. Ana, the small and delicate little girl, is the child obsessed with weapons and destruction and often comes as close to death as she can. She is curious about anything and everything that can cause destruction. Instead of playing with dolls like many people consider all little girls do, she wants to play outside and learn about weapons. This inversion of a child furthers Eggers message that not only does everyone fit one stereotype, but that children are open and innocent and can change others’ views of the world and one day get rid of
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stereotypes. In contrast, Paul, the older, bigger boy, is delicate and understands people's feelings. He acts not only as an older brother, but a wise parent who understands many things that adults do and can help people solve a problem. He takes care of his little sister when his mother cannot, or is too intoxicated to do so. Paul again inverts the stereotypical role of a boy because he is not interested in sports, but instead he is caring, calm and reliable. Eggers also inverts the role of Carl, the ex-husband of Josie and father of their children. The man of the house is often perceived to be the breadwinner and the hard working American. Yet Eggers inverts this role and creates Carl to be a character that has never worked for anything in his life, and must be supported by others. He does not care about anyone except himself, and for every problem that arises, he finds someone else to blame. He also did not act like a grown man, but instead like a child. Eggers writes, “He was, years after they met, still a child, still discovering his relationship to the world, discovering his own body” (19). Carl was more of a child and a coward than the man he was supposed to be. Josie is a single mother who slowly falls apart. One may expect a mother with two children to be responsible, and always put her children first. Yet Josie does the exact opposite of this, taking them out of school after she has lost her job and cannot handle being surrounded by people. Because she cannot handle her own problems, she forces them onto others, instead of handling them like a mature adult. Yet in her journey to Alaska, she becomes mature and learns to separate her children from other wordly problems. This character development was critical in the progression of the book, as it showed the weight that was lifted off of Josie during her journey into Alaska. This inversion and removal of stereotypes exemplifies Eggers writing style. Eggers does not want to classify anyone into any one category because he believes each person is unique and different, and uses inversion to create this sense of individuality. Own Experiences Eggers often uses his own experiences to create his characters. Eggers parents both died and he was orphaned at the age of 21 and had to take care of his eight year old brother. This traumatizing experience gave Eggers a very different version of adulthood than many others experience, and he portrays many of the same issues he experienced in his novels (ThoughtS). In his story Heroes of the Frontier, the main character, Josie, is abandoned by her parents and lives with her dentist. Then later, her husband divorces her and she becomes a terrible parent to her own children. Josies’ son, Paul, ends up taking care of his sister, Ana, just as Eggers took care of his younger brother. Josies family struggles to be a family, just as Eggers did. Eggers adds these real life experiences to his novels in order to create not only a deeper connection between himself and the characters, but the character and the reader by giving the character more human like qualities. The imperfection of adults in this book creates more realistic relationships, as the relationships were inspired by real experiences. Similarly, The main character Alan in A Hologram for the King is a terrible father to his daughter. He spends the entire story trying to defend his ex-wife after his daughter tells him she is crazy. Alan tries to find the words to tell her that her mother has the best in mind, but cannot find the words. Just as Eggers was left alone to take care of his younger brother, Alan is left alone to take care of his daughter. Eggers use of integrating his own experiences into his novels creates a more vivid description of family and how many family are not whole. Chaos In Josie’s journey to Alaska, she is trying to avoid chaos. She finds that with people, comes inescapable chaos, and the only way to avoid this is to avoid everyone. Not only is her daughter, Ana, a symbol of chaos, but so are the Alaskan wildfires. Josie uses many tactics to try and remove the chaos from her life, but only realizes in the end that she cannot remove the chaos, but she can change it. Josie’s daughter, Ana is a symbol of chaos. Everywhere she goes, she finds the “weak spot of the structure” and destroys something. Yet she specifically never hurts herself until the very end of the novel where she cuts her leg. This change is symbolic of Ana’s change from causing the destruction of others and constantly being intolerable, to just being a regular child who occasionally has accidents. It represents the chaos being reigned in a controllable. The wildfire is another symbol of chaos. It follows Josie up into northern Alaska. At one point, as she tries to escape the flames, she accidentally ends up driving into them. When the fire destroyed her house and car, she feels a tinge of sadness, but she more feels as if a weight has been lifted from her shoulders. With these fires follow the signs, “If not you, then who?” (44). These are supposed to advocate for the prevention of forest fires, but in reality they make Josie think about her past and all the poor choices she has made, and how she can make better ones in the future. This sign sticks with Josie as the fires end and prompt her to become a better person and raise her children better. Alcohol is one of the ways Josie ignores her problems. She is constantly drunk, not thinking of the consequences of being drunk and taking care of her children nor the consequences of drunk driving. Yet as the story progresses, she gives up drinking and starts to focus on her child fight against chaos. Josie understands the chaos exists, like the fact that Ana will never be still. But she also knows that she can make her kids better, and instead of trying to run from the chaos, she can try to change it. Her lawsuit is another sign of chaos she tries to escape.
After Evelyn Sandalwood files a lawsuit against Josie because Josie, her dentist, did not see her mouth cancer, Josie is convicted of malpractice. This was the final straw in Josie’s life that prompted her to move to Alaska. Yet, while she is in Alaska, she gets a call that Sandalwood has passed away. This does not change anything about the lawsuit, but it gives Josie hope that another bad soul is gone, and good souls like her children are being raised and only growing stronger.
Her husband Carl represents the chaos that she invited into her home and the everyday toll it took on her life. He was a lazy person that contributed nothing but chaos to Josie’s life. Even when in Alaska, Carl wanted nothing to do with his kids or his ex-wife, he just wanted to convey pleasantries in order to make it look like he was involved. Yet when Ana mentions that she thinks Carl is dead, Josie feels a soft spot for him. She feels bad that he cannot take control of his life, but it gives Josie pride in hers that she was able to raise two kids on her own and remove chaos from her
life. While in the end Josie realizes she can never escape chaos, she knows she can make her life and the lives of those around her more tolerable by raising her children to the best of her ability. Eggers states, “She didn’t need to find humans of integrity and courage. SHe needed to make them” (376). Josies revelation prompts her not only to be a better mother, but to help those around her be better people too.
Many individuals decide to live their life in solitary; though, only a few choose to live in the wild. The book, Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer vividly paints the adventurous trek Chris McCandless went on. From the friends he made, to the hardships he went through, McCandless is portrayed as a friendly, sociable person despite the fact that he was a vagabond. Other than McCandless, there are even more individuals that have taken the risks to live in the wilderness such as, Jon Krakauer and Everett Ruess. All three of them had both similarities and differences between their own qualities as a person and their journey.
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.
Firstly, being in an Italian in an Australian society has affected Josie in many different ways because the way people view her affects her in the start of the novel because she doesn’t know who she is because she hasn’t developed her cultural identity. Later in the novel, she accepts that she is a ‘wog’ and this affects
Through the protagonist, Josie the audiences learn that being an illegitimate and meeting one’s parent is hard to tackle but that feeling will eventually change once the individual has known their parent. “How dare you think that I want to be in your life! I don’t want you anywhere near us, especially my mother.” is the dialogue that Josie has told Michael when they had their first conversation.
Have you ever felt like you didn’t belong somewhere and just wanted to get away? Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer is about a guy named Christopher who called himself Alex, and he just wanted to get away from his life and live how he wanted. Christopher McCandless stands out because he shows his emotions thoroughly and goes through with what he thinks. McCandless can be described as a thrill seeker, arrogant, and courageous.
This book Into The Wild is about how a young man wants to get away from the world. He does escape from society, but ends up dying in the process. The author, Jon Krakauer, does a great job of describing Chris McCandless and his faults. Chris is an intelligent college graduate. He went on a two-year road trip and ended up in Alaska. He didn't have any contact with his parents in all of that time. Krakauer does a great job of interviewing everyone who had anything to do with McCandless from his parents, when he grew up, to the people who found his body in Alaska.
When Jon Krakauer published a story about the death of a young man trekking into the Alaskan frontier in the January 1993 issue of Outside magazine, the audience’s response to Christopher McCandless’s story was overwhelming. Thousand of letters came flooding in as a response to the article. Despite the claims, especially from the native Alaskans, questioning McCandless’s mental stability and judgement, it soon becomes clear that McCandless was not just "another delusional visitor to the Alaskan frontier" (4). As Krakauer retells the life of Christopher McCandless and gives his own take on the controversy around McCandless’s death in Into The Wild, the reader also creates his own opinion on both McCandless and Krakauer’s argument. Krakauer
Josie's father has had very little immediate impact on her life thus far. When her father did arrive in back in Sydney Josie is naturally angry at him. This is a totally acceptable form of behaviour considering the circumstance, but her anger not only stems from her own personal experience. Josie had to grow up knowing that her father had abandoed her and her mother, pushing her Christina into being a single parent bringing up her child alone.
Josie feels as if her traditions will only give her more problems. “She wants to know why other Italian girls have Italian boyfriends and I don’t. If I want to go out with Australians, she objects. ‘What do they know about culture?’ she asks. ‘Do they understand the way we live?’”Nonna wants Josie to marry an Italian man in the future, but she herself had an affair with an Australian when she was young. She decides to hide the guilt and take the frustrations out on Christina and Josie by saying that “a daughter’s behaviour always reflects on how a good mother is.”. Josie’s relationship with Jacob lets her understand how relaxed the Australian culture is. Josie doesn’t want Jacob to meet her parents as she knows that they won’t accept him as he lives “without religion and culture.”, but it has let Josie understand that Australia is a multicultural country and that living there with another background does not make you
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.
We are living in the world where rules and laws have a significant role in controlling human behavior in the society. There are rules everywhere. Traffic laws help to protect drivers and pedestrians from accidents; syllabus helps to give students a set of rules that teacher expects from them. Nevertheless, a minority amount of people wish not to follow these rules because of its oppression and pressure on the desire to achieve their dream. “Into the Wild,” a book was written by Jon Krakauer, and “Grizzly Man,” a movie which was directed by Werner Herzog, are two non-fiction stories about the journey of men who walked away from constraints for an adventurous, unexpected way of living. Both of them were not pleased with how the
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 book Into The Wild, written by Jon Krakauer, tells the story of Chris McCandless a young man who abandoned his life in search of something more meaningful than a materialistic society. In 1992 Chris gave his $ 25,000 savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, and burned all of his money to chase his dream. Chris’s legacy was to live in simplicity, to find his purpose, and to chase his dreams. Chris McCandless’s decision to uproot his life and hitchhike to Alaska has encouraged other young adults to chase their dreams. Neal Karlinksy illustrates the love Chris had for nature in the passage, “He was intoxicated by the nature and the idea of a great Alasican adventure-to survive in the bush totally alone.”
The gripping tale of a young man who leaves all that he has and goes to live amidst the natural world, Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer showcases the two years Christopher McCandless had spent journeying throughout the United States before his unfortunate death. After graduating from Emory University in 1990, McCandless disconnected with all of his past relations and abandoned the majority of his possessions. McCandless’ decisions either seem extremely unwise or extremely courageous. He had a comfortable life with few worries yet he still chose to toss it all away and venture into unknown territories. What many wonder is why he would do such an irrational thing. Maybe, McCandless’ was simply trying to run away from his perception of reality. Through deserting his family, friends, and material possessions, Christopher McCandless was attempting to escape the unavoidable condition of the world along with the mundane life ahead of him. He was escaping from the impending dreariness of his future and the idea of decisions impacting him and the people around him. Christopher McCandless appeared to believe that by going off into the wild, his life would no longer be surrounded by a shroud of uncertainty and despair.