`` Iron John Written By Robert Bly Essay

Tobias Wolff’s memoir, ‘This Boy’s life’ explores his record of growing up in 1950’s post-war America. Frequented with tropes surrounding masculinity, identity, and relationships between individuals, Wolff retells his experiences beginning with Jack at age 10, attempting a fresh start with his mother, Rosemary, and continues throughout his adolescence, navigating toxic relationships and societal expectations. Jack’s compelling desire for a notable identify results in him manifesting webs of lies and acting out in problematic means, cracking the façade of his virtuous nature. However, Rosemary’s troubled relationship complex of attracting abusive men, may act as a conduit and instigator towards Jack’s behaviour during his childhood and the proceeding developments as he progresses with

The novel “Into the Wild”, by Jon Krakauer, is an excruciating story about a young man facing off against the dangers of nature. The main protagonist, Chris McCandless faced off against many internal and external obstacles that stood in his way of achieving his goal of successfully surviving on his own in the wilderness of North America. McCandless clashed with many lethal and perilous obstacles as he travelled all the way across the continent. The challenges he faced varied from surviving in the harsh wilderness, the difficulties of young manhood, and also the challenge of person versus society.

“‘On the one side we have the free personality: by definition it is not neurotic, for it has neither conflict nor dream. Its desires, such as they are, are transparent, for they are just what institutional approval keeps in the forefront of consciousness; another institutional pattern would alter their number and intensity; there is little in them that is natural, irreducible, or culturally dangerous’”(para. 3).

What is it that we find crazy about those who have the courage to do what we won’t? In the compelling novel “Into The Wild” by Jon Krakauer the character and intelligence of the youth in men is questioned. Through the pieced together 200 page novel we are introduced to Christopher Johnson McCandless also known as “Alex Supertramp”. A ripe 24 years of age he chose to question our reality and his meaning of life that is given to us by hitchhiking across America to the Alaskan wilderness, where after four months in the last frontier he is found dead. Krakauer throughout the novel shows that although some admire what McCandless did, others found his final journey “reckless” and “crazy”. Krakauer goes to explain this claim through interviews of those who have encountered McCandless on his adventure and through those who got to know his story.

Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India once said, “We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm, and adventure. There is no end to the adventures that we can have if we seek them with our eyes open” (Nehru). In the book Into the Wild Jon Krakauer introduces the reader to Christopher McCandless’s, a young man from California with a heart yearning for adventure and a head beyond his years. The reader learns there is no one quite like Chris McCandless, but many people have sought out to seek the “more” from life. Jon Krakauer uses pathos and quirky but also thrilling anecdotes throughout Into the Wild to separate how Chris McCandless perceived himself and how others perceived him.

Throughout history, people encounter a stage in their lives where they feel the necessity to assert their independence and challenge their abilities and self-worth. In the book, Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, the author shares his understanding and kinship with the main character, Chris McCandless, a young man who thrusts himself into a life of solitude and a harsh environment during his search for meaning to his life. Krakauer depicts himself and McCandless as modern day transcendentalists with an abundance of competency, resourcefulness and skills as naturalists. Although McCandless chose to experience a life of solitude and face the hazards that nature presents, his lack of preparedness prevented him from completing his endeavor successfully.

In the book Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer depicts a teenager named Christopher McCandless, who is unsatisfied with the values emphasized by our currently materialistic society. Although many of us today may evaluate his behavior as eccentric and absurd, we must not hastily make judgements about his behavior with our conventional way reasoning. To dive deeply into Christopher’s cognitive process we can analyze a letter written by him to Ronald Franz. In this letter Christopher’s values are laid bare for us to see. Christopher is a person who enjoys living on the edge and despises reactionary and complacent thinking, and he is shown to highly emphasizes the importance of adventure,

In one scene of the memoir, Allison describes her uncles and their need to be depicted as masculine and to act “hard” to the world around them. She also remembers her cousins as young boys and how quickly they seemed to turn into men. The time came for them to act as the world expected them to. This action shows how gender may oppress some males when they feel the pressures of the world to act a certain way. Otherwise, they are at risk for being seen as different and abnormal. Men who do not portray masculinity well are often seen as feminine and weak. When Allison describes her uncles she states, “If you didn’t look close, you might miss the sharp glint of pain in their eyes, the restless angry way they gave themselves up to fate,” (Allison, 28). These men already had their futures planned for them though the society and gender norms. Acting against these norms was seen as unusual, radical, and

People are often told to be themselves as a way of embracing their uniqueness. This seems to not be true since conformity and lack of individualism is a big issue with society. The issue of what led Christopher McCandless, main character from Into the Wild by John Krakauer, to go on a search to find himself. In the author’s note of the novel, Krakauer introduces the term ‘schools of thought’. In the case of this book, there are two; one being that some people said it was a suicide mission and the other being that others disagreed saying he was ambitious. The story demonstrates one man’s attempt to define a lifestyle and find meaning in his life that came from something outside materialistic and civilized contemporary

It is easier to impose a sense of insanity than it is to disprove the other way. The novel Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer depicts and closely analyzes the actions and dispositions of a young man, Chris McCandless, who ventured off into the wilderness to look for spiritual freedom away from all the corruptions of society. Though in the writings of Krakauer, it is evident that Chris McCandless can be characterized as a pilgrim, however, he is nothing more than a reckless kid with many poor attributes that eventually cost him his life. It could appear ironic to some, how his narcissistic side blinded him from reality, causing him to detach from any interactions with humanity.

The movie surveyed a wide array of the troubles faced by boys and men as they try to navigate the realm of masculinity. A common theme was the command “be a man” and the cultural baggage that comes with living up to that ideal. To “be a man” means to not cry, to not be sensitive, to not let people mess with you, to respond with violence, to be angry, to drink, to womanize.

John, a savage, has never been able to fit in society. Moving through two contradicting societies, John is unable to adapt to the major differences of the civilized society due to the different ways upon how it is conducted. Living with the savages, John feels isolated from the savages as they exclude him from most of their norms. John wanted to

Chris McCandless and Buck serve as examples of the archetype of the wild through their experiences of leaving where they feel most comfortable and answering the call of the wild. They show that each experience is inimitable because the wild is unique to every individual. For Buck, the wild is a place outside of civilization and his dependence on man, where the external threats of nature exist and he must prove himself as a true animal with instincts for survival. In McCandless' case, the place outside of civilization is actually an escape from his fears because the wild for him is in relationships, where the threat of intimacy exists and he must learn to trust others for happiness. This is because for each of us, the wild is what we

After graduating from college McCandless, the protagonist in Penn’s Into the Wild, donates all his savings to charity, burns all of the money he has and goes on a journey into the wilderness, removing himself from society. He suggests that the wild will kill the disciplines that have been instilled within him, what he refers to as: “the false being within” and being ‘poisoned by civilization’. He feels

The notion of human nature has always been historically debated. Explores, philosophers, and writers have always come to argue on what is considered to be barbarism, savagery, and civilized. These constructed categories have put a label on people who do not share the same ideas as one another. These different views of human nature have come to propel change and have come to revolutionized human history. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Michel de Montaigne, and Thomas Hobbes all differ on their ideas of human nature, but they also share common ground. For some of these men the practices of different cultures are categorized as savagery, and for others it has been viewed as noble savagery. Their ideas however have allowed society to view different perspectives of human nature. These perspectives have classified human nature as a way of life, or as an obstacle to what is consider to be the good life. Their ethnographic resources provide a glimpse to all the different cultures and their value to society and history.