Into Thin Air By Jon Krakauer

In Larry Lankton’s text, “Beyond the Boundaries” we gradually enter an unknown world that is frightening yet filled with immense beauty for miles. Due to the copper mining industry, a gradual increase of working class men and their families start to migrate to the unknown world with unsteady emotion, yet hope for a prosperous new life. In “Beyond the Boundaries”, Lankton takes us on a journey on how the “world below” transformed the upper peninsula into a functional and accepted new part of the world.

“The Falling Man,” taken by Richard Drew on September 11, 2001, remains one of the most controversial, yet underappreciated images of the 21st Century. The picture captures one of the final moments of a victim from the World Trade Center, who chose to commit suicide rather than perish in the burning fires on the top floor. As the man plunges to his doom, he is positioned upside-down with legs flailing in the air. In the background lies the Twin Towers, positioned precisely to split right in the middle of both the image and the man himself. Understandably, this scene drew much backlash by the public, as it revealed the private moments of a man on the worst day in modern American history. At the same time, it also caused others to reflect soberly

“Happiness is only real, when shared.” - Jon Krakauer Into the wild. Jon Krakauer, the author of Into the Wild told the story of Chris McCandless. Chris escaped reality and went to go live off the land in Alaska, hoping to live a simpler life. In the novel, Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, Chris McCandless shared a similar philosophy with Jack London, as they both have a strong passion for Alaska, they both appreciated they beauty of nature, and both wanted to be reborn.

The novel The Kite Runner, written by Khaled Hosseini, is the story of a young, upper class boy by the name of Amir and his friend, a lower class boy named Hassan. While Amir is a Pashtun and a Sunni Muslim, Hassan is a Hazara and a Shi’a muslim, which causes the main conflict between the two. Amir and Hassan learn more and more about their social status, as well as their personal friendships and problems as they grow up in Afghanistan.

Would choose a new car, a good job position and a high quality life or would you choose to give up all for a journey into the wild to discover the truth? Christopher Johnson McCandless choose ultimate freedom and truth rather than choosing security and material excess. The story into the wild is written by Jon Krakauer and it covers how Christopher lived for two years without the need of society and material excess. Chris journey enlightened him to the truth and made him feel the raw throb of existence. But, by mistaking people as part of society not as part of God creation and nature will suffer and eventually die. The journalist Jon Krakauer believes in Chris truth and see a relation between him and Chris and what gave him the motive ti write Into the Wild.

In the book “Into the Wild”, Jon Krakauer tells us the story about the life of a young man named Chris McCandless. Raised in a middle class family in Virginia, McCandless lived with his father, Walt; his mother, Billie; and his sister Carine. Chris was intelligent, athletic, extremely well rounded, and had a natural talent for anything he attempted. After graduating from Emory University with a bachelor’s degree, he tells his family that he plans to “disappear for a while”. What Chris does is he abandons his possessions, donates his entire life savings to charity, and hitch-hikes his way to Alaska to live alone in the wilderness. McCandless spent 112 days hunting animals and gathering plants for survival, however, on September 6th, 1992, his decaying body was discovered on an abandoned bus, starved to death. Although Chris made heedless decisions that subsequently drove him to his death, I admire him for his self-reliance, perseverance, and bravery.

Endless miles of powder white snow, piercing bitter winds, and white-capped mountains, a continuing stretch of shimmering sand, relentless heat of a blazing sun, and high jagged cliffs, or a warm comfortable couch, a big blanket, a bag of chips, and Netflix. If asked which of these three would bring them happiness, many would undoubtedly say the third choice. But the book Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer tells the story of a young man, Chris McCandless, who if asked the same question, would choose the first two promptly. Chris McCandless, raised in the suburb of Washington D.C, left his home and started his own journey wandering all across North America in search of adventure after graduating from Emory University in 1990. In April 1992, he reached his biggest goal when he hitchhiked to Alaska and lived in the wild. Four months later, hikers and hunters found his S.O.S note and his dead body. But his inspiring story, as well as many others like it, have proven that to find happiness, it is necessary that a person leave the conformity of everyday life and find simplicity and excitement in the challenges of adventures and new experiences.

Australia and Everest, two different climates, locations, and ways of life, yet people come to both for breathtaking adventure. In sixth grade I found out my family was moving across the world to a city called Wollongong in Australia. Here my adventure began from going to an all girls school to hiking in the Grampians. Everest is a place only a few people want to tackle, but it leaves a memory for all who climb Everest no matter how old. A new adventure is what brings people to places whether it is a city in Australia or the top of the world. In Wollongong, I was scared to start my first day of a new school full of strangers with funny accents in a place I had only dreamed of. My dream and my desire to explore new places came true, and now I have the key to unlock my new adventures. Those people dreamed of climbing Everest and did unlock an exciting but scary truth. I was a girl scared to go

John Krakauer’s depiction of the tragic life of Chris McCandless in the award winning novel “Into the Wild” creates different schools of thought that brew a perfect storm for debate. Krakauer’s polarizing style is what makes it so special, because no two people will feel the same way as they experience the journey of McCandless. One of the highly discussed topics of the novel relates to the idea that Chris’ journey of self-discovery in his quest for “ultimate freedom” is inherently selfish or nobel. McCandless’ quest is noble in many ways. The first of which is his desire to leave behind the modern materialistic world and isolate himself to find peace. He also has this deep seated desire to fill a void, a missing

Jon Krakauer’s novel, Into the Wild, is an insightful nonfiction story about a young man named Christopher McCandless and his wonderful journey cross country, all the way from Virginia to his final destination in Alaska. Throughout the novel Chris McCandless creates the name Alexander Supertramp, mostly because his trip was about reinventing himself and completing one of his lifelong dreams. The novel begins with the situation in which random bystanders who are hiking or hunting, find Christopher McCandless’s body in an abandoned bus in Fairbanks, Alaska and everything else that follows in the novel is the details about his traveling through multiple states. Even though the novel tells you exactly how Chris’ adventure ends, the reader is still compelled to read all the details about his experience because of how the author tells his story in such a captivating way. Although Chris did go to college, he spent every spare moment on breaks from school taking long road trips in yellow Datsun, which was in a way, his first taste of escaping society. Chris lived his last years on earth without being restrained by society and without really having to worry about needing money for everything he wanted to do in life. Chris still needed money during his adventures so for months at a time, twice during his journey, he would work at Wayne Westerberg’s, one of his close friends, grain elevator in Carthage, South Dakota and also briefly ends up working at a McDonalds in Bullhead

Joseph Prince, a famous clergyman, says “ What you believe is very powerful. If you have toxic emotions of fear guilt and depression, it is because you have wrong thinking, and you have wrong thinking because of wrong”. This quote reveals your belief is powerful enough to change your perspective. Strong emotions like fear, guilt, and depression can lead someone to react or cause stress. Joseph goes on to say that your emotions can force you to make wrongdoings. These actions can haunt you forever. Author Khaled Hosseini, examines powerful emotions such as betrayal, guilt, and relief. He looks at how these emotions change your perspective. In the novel The Kite Runner, Hosseini uses the characterization of Amir to illustrate when man feels disconnected from his father, he will betray man, by having a strong sense of guilt, and he redeems himself by having a relief of pain.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini is a tragic tale of guilt and redemption. The book details the life of Amir as he wrestles with the guilt of seeing Hassan raped, and later redeems himself by helping Hassan’s son Sohrab cope with extreme abuse at the hands of Assef. While some would argue the main theme of the book is redemption, I believe that the theme is simple: the past does define us, but it is through the past that we find ultimate significance.

The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, is a novel about a young Pashtun boy, Amir, and his journey to seek redemption. The Kite Runner bounces between two settings. The story is narrated in 2001, in present day California and shifts back to Amir’s childhood in Kabul, Afghanistan around 1975. Amir was born into a lavish lifestyle with everything he could wish for, except for love, affection, and acceptance from his father, Baba. Ali and his son Hassan, of are servants to Baba and Amir. They are of the Hazara ethnicity. Throughout his childhood, Hassan was dedicated to being Amir 's best friend, they did everything together. One of the many things they did together was kite running.

Before I read The Kite Runner, I had looked up a summary of it online as a preview for what was to come. That was not the best idea because after having read the summary, I began to make assumptions about the book. I had thought that it was going to be a very historically factual book about Afghanistan in the 1960s and 1970s when the Soviet Union invaded and the Taliban regime took over. I was expecting a plot line similar to Night by Elie Wiesel: a book about a boy and his father’s experiences during World War II in Nazi German concentration camps. As someone who is not a history enthusiast, I was then not very thrilled to read Khaled Hosseini’s book. However, I was incredibly surprised after reading it. There were certain parts that discussed different political events that occurred during that time, specifically with the Taliban. In addition, there were examples of traditional Afghani cultural events like the kite flying tournaments and the wedding ceremony. Although Khaled Hosseini used historically accurate experiences from his life in Afghanistan as inspiration, he also created a character with his own childhood, friends, family, and story. The Kite Runner is Amir’s, the protagonist and narrator of the novel, retelling of childhood events in Kabul that “made [him] what [he is] today” (Hosseini 2) and his present journey to amend his mistakes from the past.

This novel, Into Thin Air, has impacted me in a multitude of ways. The first being the surprise that I felt throughout the book. All of the deaths and mishaps showed me that climbing Everest is not as easy and as simple as I thought it was. Krakauer also crashed a wave of sorrow on to me, as I felt bad for all of the people who lost family and friends in the disaster, or experienced it. Along with this, I was also impacted because the author was very informative about Everest and its history. He delved deep into the past beliefs about the mountain, the measurements, and different ways people have ascended the mountain. Before reading Into Thin Air I was very much clueless about any history or information surrounding the mountain.