Into Thin Air Themes

The main character and protagonist, Jon Krakauer, is a United States client and journalist who is on an expedition to climb to the summit of Mt. Everest. He takes the reader through his horrifying experiences on the mountain, including the death of his team, lack of oxygen, and horrible weather. The conflict in this novel is an internal and external conflict. It is an internal conflict of man vs. himself. Jon Krakauer, had to go through mental states of giving up and dying on the mountain

Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air is an autobiographical book that does more than tell a story; it voices out the true definition of pain, strife, and hopelessness, exemplifying the all known rule of survival of the fittest.

Into Thin Air is a novel which provides a personal view from Jon Krakauer about a treacherous disaster on Mount Everest in 1996. After reading the novel, I can say the book came out to be much better than expected. Initially, I assumed that the book would simply guide a reader from Kathmandu to the summit, but the book held much more value within its pages. Although there is one component of the story that I disliked, I can still say that Into Thin Air is a very interesting novel which could both inspire people to climb Everest or stay away from it.

The book Into Thin Air, written by Jon Krakauer, explores the struggle of man versus man and man versus nature. The very different personalities proved costly to everyone involved on the expedition. The team of climbers that were hiking toward the summit of Mt. Everest on May 10, 1996, was oblivious to what lay ahead of them. No matter how advanced the hikers were, Everest on this day would test the will and endurance of everyone attempting to reach the summit. The one element that no one person could elude was pain.

Throughout the book, he communicates his own thoughts about his own self-searching and attempts to consider the events that led up to this tragedy. Krakauer writes the magazine article when he returns home to Seattle. after publishing the story, he soon learns his error in reporting the affairs of the expedition. Resulting from lack of oxygen He thought that one of the guides had fallen and died when actually the guide died in attempt to help Hall. This displays an example of ethos, because it shows the genuine character and credibility of the guide, as he was risking his life to help Hall. Krakauer is then has to face and accept this mistake and to constantly wonder what more he could have done to help his team members and fellow

Krakauer starts with Chris’s arrival in Alaska and his last contact, for example in Chapter one he said “Jim Gallien had driven four miles out of Fair when he spotted the hitchhiker …….. The hitchhiker swung his pack into the bed of the ford and introduced himself as Alex,” then Krakauer add flashbacks to Chris’s childhood, he mentioned in chapter twelve “Many aspects of Chris’s personality baffled his parents. He could be generous and caring to a fault……” This chaos that Krakauer used eventually becomes the backbone for the structure of the book.The fact that Krakauer started with Chris death show us that his purpose from writing this book was not to only think about Chris’s painful lose but actually to also think about how did he end up dead and did he achieve his goal in this journey. As this book develops, the nature and the content of Krakauer narrative forces us to ask deep questions about the reason of Chris’s journey which help us make the right judgments about Chris’s

In Jon Krakauer’s Memoir Into Thin Air, Krakauer uses a variety of elements to make his story more effective. Prevalent in Into Thin Air, are Krakauer’s uses of both logos and imagery to convey his experience on Everest. The facts and descriptions in the memoir tie the story together and captivate the reader.

He wanted to make a drastic change in his life, so he decided that if the made it to the top of the mountain that everything would be better; people would recognize him for the new achievement he had made.Krakauer stated, “I loaded everything in to the car, drove up Pearl Street to Tom’s Tavern, and downed a ceremonial beer.” This statement is on page 126, and is stating that he was leaving the town that he had a life in, but before the could make that move he had to stop at a bar and have a drink before he made the journey to Alaska to climb the mountain. He was also very angry at the end of the story because once he had climbed the mountain no one had congratulated him or noticed him like he wanted. Nor had his life changed at all. He went back to the same life he had before he left for the climb, described as the life changing

Early on in Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, nature's relationship with humans is established as a fatal attraction, and this relationship is explored throughout the story. Near the end of his narrative though, Krakauer exposes the blunt, brutal consequences of his risky expedition, and how his and his cohorts' ignorance the infamous mountain's ability to fight back ultimately lead to such devastation. With the use of devices such as personification, parallel syntax and, Krakauer shows the consequences for when man and nature's relationship is overlooked. As Krakauer recollects the carnage that occurred amongst the group of people he traveled with, he states that "Everest killed twelve men and women in the spring of 1996" (283).

Krakauer starts the book off by telling who was last with McCandless before he set off onto the trail, he would never return to. Krakauer gives the readers background information for most of the book, along with excerpts from McCandless’s journal he seldom kept. This helps his argument because it gives us an inside look at McCandless’s life and the reasons for some of the things he would've done. Starting in chapter 11, titled “Chesapeake Bay,” Krakauer gives an insight to Christopher McCandless’s family around 2 months after his body was found. By organizing his book starting with whom McCandless met and his travel across the country, Krakauer makes his argument about McCandless and how he did not go into the wild unprepared, very clear and persuasive to the

“Nobody ever did, or ever will, escape the consequences of his choices”~Alfred A. Montapert. The choices made throughout Into Thin Air, were decisions that affected Jon Krakauer’s and others lives.

“The way to Everest is not a Yellow Brick Road” - Jon Krakauer. This statement derives from Krakauer's thoughts and takeaways from his disastrous climb up Mount Everest that completely upset Krakauer's viewpoint of his lifelong dream, to climb the tallest mountain in the world. Krakauer recounts his journey while scaling Mount Everest in his non-fictional book Into Thin Air, that supports his statement of why the climb is not a Yellow Brick Road. Jon Krakauer's countless mountaineering adventures are the foundation of most of his books, including Eiger Dreams, Into Thin Air, and Into the Wild. Krakauer also uses religion as a base of his book Under the Banner of Heaven.

Although it seems Krakauer tries to show that through his experiences, he learned of his family’s importance, it actually shows that through these experiences he

Krakauer is a reporter that went to Everest to write about the commercialization of Everest in an article for Outside Magazine. He was originally only supposed to stay at Base Camp, but instead decided to summit and write about his experience. His purging included every little fact about Sherpa Culture and the history of Everest, all the way to the backstories of his fellow climbers and the preparation they had to attempt the summit. Amongst all the facts, this book is also about a devastating storm that killed some skilled climbers, saved others, forced a few climbers to be left for dead, mad a few climbers f]push their limits, and forced a couple teams to make large sacrifices in order to help. This story also shows us how some men died heroes while others live with the guilt of not helping enough. Krakauer also uses foreshadowing and cliff hangers to keep readers intrigued. To further sum the whole story up, it is about loyalty, life, death, and ordinary people testing their physical, mental, and emotional

The book Into Thin Air written by Jon Krakauer, is about a man climbing the highest mountain, Everest. This is the first person view of the deadly Everest disaster. This non-fiction book shows the condition of how bad the conditions are in Everest and how hard it is to climb and survive. Jon Krakauer shows the amazing and dark side of Everest and how it swallows human life. He shows how hard it is to climb Everest and shows that it’s no walk in the park.