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Into Thin Air Analysis

Decent Essays

Into Thin Air Summer Reading Assignments Into Thin Air mainly takes place on Mount Everest during the spring of 1996. In the first few chapters, Krakauer describes the scenery as lush and beautiful. However, as the plot progresses, the landscape changes to the barren and freezing mountain. This change in setting is reflective of how the overall mood of the book evolves into a scary and tense drama. Morals are a constant force that do not change. If so called morals vary, they aren’t really morals. While it may be more understandable in a certain situation why someone doesn’t follow their morals, it doesn’t make it right. For example, if a friend asks for an opinion on their outfit, and someone lies to them to spare their opinion, it’s still lying, and therefore it’s immoral. The circumstances shouldn’t change people’s morals, and if they do, it’s a testament to the weakness of the beliefs held by the person themselves, not the situation. Humans have an undeniable arrogance that causes many to believe that they can conquer and tame nature. Driven by this sense of superiority, people become overconfident and make bad decisions. In and of itself, the idea of climbing mountains is a dangerous one. Just ask the hundreds of people who have died on Everest. It’s the human ego that pushes people to risk their lives to climb mountains. …show more content…

In the hours before and after summiting, a series of seemingly random events decided each climber’s fate. Some of these incidents seem to be close to miracles: some climbers turning back earlier than the rest because of a “gut feeling,” Weathers’ shocking survival. For as many lifesaving coincidences happened, there were just as many dooming events. From people ignoring the turnback time to the unpredicted storm, a combination of human and natural errors were the deciding factors in ending some climbers’ lives. As with many tragedies, it's impossible to identify just one

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