A Walk In The Woods Analysis

The movie “Wild” is based on Cheryl Strayed’s autobiography about her trek along the Pacific Crest Trail in 1995. The story is set on the Pacific crest trail, including a wide variety of climates including: deserts, snow covered mountains, and tropical forests. Along her journey on the trail, the movie flashes back to several traumas that drove her into the wild, in order to reinvent herself as a strong independent woman once again, no longer bound by guilt, shame, and regret. This is a movie that embraces the healing values of nature and how it can help an individual gain a broader perspective on life.

Straying away from life as a whole only to be alone, some may say is the strong way to heal themselves when dealing with extreme grief or a major crisis . In the book Wild, twenty-two year old Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost it all. Dealing with the loss of her mother, her family torn to pieces, and her very own marriage was being destroyed right before her very eyes. Living life with nothing more to lose, lifeless, she made the most life changing decision of her life. Strayed never seems remorseful on her decisions to up and leave everything behind while deciding to flee from it all. This being her way of dealing with life, it shows her as being strong; a woman of great strength and character. She shows personal strength, which is

First-hand experience is undoubtedly persuasive. It provides a whole new context and subtlety to an event and can sometimes completely change the perception of it. Because of this, first-hand experience is extremely effective in arguments and holds a lot of weight. Argumentative pieces will often use first-hand experiences to support their claims, and A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson is no different. Throughout the novel Bryson uses his own personal experience with hiking the Appalachian trail, Bryson creates an argument throughout the novel and uses his personal story to prove it. Bryson uses his own personal experience to prove his main argument, that Americans yearn for the days of old even though most of the nature in America is run

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.

In Matthew Hedger’s article “Yosemite National Park Day Hikes: Vernal Falls Death March”, he claims that you don’t always know what you’re getting into and find that things are harder than they seem. Hedger supports his claim with a story of his hike up Vernal Falls. His purpose is to inform his readers that you can always get through difficult things and that they’re stronger than they think. The intended audience is anyone who enjoys a good story and wants to know about hiking.

In his novel, Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer recounts the true tale of Chris McCandless, a recent college graduate who decided against a professional career and instead opted for a life of adventuring and self-reliance. Readers of Into the Wild have shared differing opinions of McCandless. Some view him as passionate, courageous, and admirable while others view him as reckless, arrogant, and “unworthy of the considerable media attention he received.” (Author’s Note) Though McCandless’ courage and steadfast dedication to his beliefs are admirable, I believe that his hubris, naivete, and his inadequate preparation should be the most important points in any discussion of his trips and subsequent death.

Strayed was more than qualified to write this book because it is based off of her personal experience, from having dealt with the death of her mother to hiking eleven hundred miles of the Pacific Crest Trail. She also wrote; “The New York

Imagine being stuck in the wild, on the verge of dying from either starvation or freezing to death. There are not enough resources, not enough food, all you have left is to hope. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, is a story written of a man named Chris McCandless who overall did not like his life. He thought society corrupted his dreams that he previously set, and he wanted to get away from all of societies norms. Chris wanted to achieve his dream, he wanted a “thrill” in his life, so, Chris decided to go out into the wild and be a free man. In the process he left behind his family who worried everyday having no notion of his whereabouts. Chris was without a doubt , a very controversial/confusing person. People who have heard his story have reason to believe that he was a foolish, stupid kid who got lost into the wild and got himself killed. However, due to Chris' grit, his ability to look deep inside himself to bring out the real him, and his love of nature are all exceptional. Chris' journey into the threatening Alaskan wilderness was not one of stupidity, but one of self determination and courageousness.

Many great writers have a way of connecting to their audience and influence the way we analyze their writing strategies. Cheryl Strayed created a biography, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, about her life changing experience that allows us the opportunity to apply aspects of a rhetorical analysis to her writing. Cheryl’s memory of her journey along the Pacific Crest Trail, that extends over 1,000 miles from Mexico to Canada, provides us with explicit details and evidence that tie into her motives and conditions for writing and her intended audience. Cheryl also makes appeals to her knowledge, trustworthiness, and emotions that help us illustrate her insights as she traveled along the trail.

“A Lesson Before Dying” and “Into The Wild” are both books that defy the expected, tackle tough obstacles, and face the physical and mental extremes of life. Beginning with “Into The Wild”, Jon Krakauer leads us on a rich and insightful tour through the brash and lucid life of Chris McCandless. Followed by a well thought out, fiction novel featuring a sticky situation in a small Cajun community, “A Lesson Before Dying”, by Ernest J. Gaines. This split, self chosen, mini series takes us through a roller coaster of comparisons and contrasts, leading with the first noticeable major difference.

Happiness is not easily achieved in this life and sometimes it will make you pay high prices for it. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer is a book talking about an adventurer named Chris McCandless that lost his life looking for his happiness. Chris was a smart boy that had the potential to go to Harvard law school, but he left his family, friends and education to go to Alaska. Krakauer wrote about McCandless’ journey to provide clear the reasons McCandless went to Alaska and why he did it and what he went through because Krakauer saw In McCandless. Krakauer wrote about McCandless’s journey while including some detailed reasoning and excuses for McCandless actions. Krakauer’s purpose of writing Into the wild furnish to the writing style

She states “That the two of you have managed-after your ten happy years together-to roll on for another ten “peaceably,” in spite of the enormous stress you’re under, is an accomplishment that you mustn’t fail to recognize. It may indicate that the love you once shared isn’t dead.” Strayed also mentions his four children, she basically says that “by not getting help you’re hurting more than just yourself,” playing the guilt card in a way. Even though pathos is the main argument, there are also signs of ethos in this advice

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, published in 1996, discusses the life and death of young adult and adventurer, Christopher McCandless. Krakauer, a journalistic writer from the Pacific Northwest, was quite fond of adventure as well, having a passion for climbing. His infatuation for risk and adventure gave him great interest in McCandless’s story of leaving the comfort of his home in Virginia and wandering across the country, ultimately landing himself to the brush of Alaska, where his journies came to a close and he died. Into the Wild goes through events from 1990 to 1992, going through McCandless’s trips and the people he met, to his family life and investigations of his death, to other adventurers that can he can be compared to. Krakauer outlines the story through use of different sources including McCandless’s family and the people he met, along with his own story and that of other similar people such as Everett Ruess. The controversy over McCandless’s life choices and the story of his life bring about numerous concepts that are universal to human experience. Into the Wild makes important remarks about courage, isolation, and passion, which can be looked into further when compared to the works “In Praise of Failure”, “Embracing a Life of Solitude”, and “The Wild Truth”, respectively.

At times of strife with oneself and during periods in one’s life, people tend to find answers or peace by disassociating from their immediate surroundings and replacing it with the natural world. Although Wild by Cheryl Strayed and Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer share the same word in their titles, the two are completely different stories with separate narrative purposes. Wild is about the author’s journey of self-discovery and self-acceptance through hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, and Into the Wild is the author’s discovery of Chris Mccandless’s natural journey, which ultimately led him to his death. Even though the ending of Wild leads to Strayed’s renewal of life, and the ending of Into the Wild leads to the insight on the ending of

The novel Life of Pi By Yann Martel is a “fantasy adventure” in which the protagonist of the story, Piscine Molitor "Pi" Patel, an Indian boy from Pondicherry, explores issues of spirituality and practicality from an early age. He survives 227 days after a shipwreck while stranded on a lifeboat in the Pacific Ocean with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. Similarly, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail is a 2012 memoir by American author Cheryl Strayed, describing her 1,100-mile hike on the Pacific Crest Trail in 1995 as a journey of self-discovery. Life of Pi and Wild both share the insightful and clearly observed themes of isolation, survival, and Man vs Nature, however could be argued to be different from one another for the reason that Cheryl chose to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, while Pi had no choice in his unfortunate fate. These two exciting novels do an outstanding job of exploring the intense effect isolation can have on a person, the unbelievable extremes people will go to for the sake of survival, and the interesting theme of Man vs Nature. The most important and