Jon Krakauer: Article Analysis

The article by Erika Christakis, informs future teachers and parents how preschool today may not be benefiting their children as much as they thought. She talks about how preschool has changed drastically over the years as well as kindergarten. She states that “kindergarten may be the new first grade”. Her statement shows how children today are expected more then they were years ago in all grades, especially preschool and at such a young age. Many think this is helping our children or will benefit them in the future if they know more as a child but this may not be the case. The article talks about multiple studies done throughout America to children are learning and how school curriculum changing affects children. A studied showed that children

In the author's notes he put “Through most of the book, I have tried--and largely succeeded, I think to--to minimize my authorial presence. But let the reader be warned: I interrupt McCandless’s story with fragments of a narrative drawn from my own youth. I do so in the hope that my experiences will throw some oblique light on the enigma of Chris McCandless”(Krakauer 2). By telling us that he will add some stories of his own make us realize that Krakauer has some relation with McCandless and it make us think that this book is more believable. In the book when he tells us that Chris just died for a simple mistake and tries to relate it to himself by telling the story of how he started to realized that going into the wilderness will change his life he emphasizes“I would go to Alaska, ski inland from the sea across thirty miles of glacial ice, and ascend this mighty nordwand. I decide, moreover, to do it alone. ” Just like McCandless, Krakauer had a lot in common with him, they both went into the wild of Alaska, which gives a lot of experience to krakauer to talk about McCandless death. In order for Krakauer to make McCandless not a crazy kid he made some other similarities between McCandless and some other people that died, with a lot of characteristics similar to McCandless and himself. Krakauer is the ideal person to criticate

One thing he said was “But I believe we were similarly affected by the skewed relationships we had with our fathers. And I suspect we had a similar intensity, a similar heedlessness, a similar agitation of the soul.” Him and Chris had similar experiences with their harsh fathers, they also shared the same hatred of conformity and society. Krakauer really does understand McCandless better than anyone else could because of all these things. You may not believe that Chris was courageous or intellectual, but it’s hard to deny the relationship between him and Krakauer.

Chris McCandless was just a victim of his own obsession. The novel "Into The Wild" written by John Krakauer revealed the life of a young bright man named Chris McCandless who turned up dead in Alaska in summer 1992. In the novel, John Krakauer approached carefully McCandless's life without putting too much authorial judgment to the readers. Although Chris McCandless remained an elusive figure throughout the novel, I can see Chris McCandless as a dreamy young idealist who tries to follow his dream but failed because of his innocent mistake which prove to be fatal and irreversible. Still, Chris McCandless's courage and passion was something that we should all be proud of.

To say that Krakauer does have a bias towards McCandless is a rather obvious statement and something known to the reader from the author’s note. “My convictions should be apparent soon enough, but I will leave it to the reader to form his or her own opinion.” Yet despite a personal bias Krakauer has towards McCandless he keeps his promise to the reader and serves as an impartial enough biographer to allow the reader to form their own opinions. By interviewing both those who knew Chris or Alexander Supertramp on his journey to the last frontier and Alaskan locals, Krakauer steps to the side and lets others give their thoughts or memories as well as criticisms of the man who met his fate in the Alaskan wilderness. Krakauer does interfere with Chris/Alex’s story at one point in order

In one of the first few pages of Krakauer’s novel, he notes that Chris’ story was heavily criticised. “Some readers admired the boy immensely for his courage and noble ideals; others fulminated that he was a reckless idiot, a wacko, a narcissist who perished out of arrogance and stupidity--and was undeserving of the considerable media attention he received.” (pg. 3). This, of course, was proven to not only limited to the negative feedback he received from Alaskans; but globally. In the case of Simpson’s article, it gave off a sense of disapproval. In her own words, “We were too cynical to read entry after entry from people looking for meaning in the life and death of a man who had rejected his family, mooched his way across the country and called himself “Alexander Supertramp” in the third person. I struggled to imagine the emotional currents that had carried people here to the bus, so far from their homes, to honor his memory.”. To interpret from this, it seems to be frequent that Alaskans hold no personal interest towards the meaning behind his death. More or less, Simpson generalizes the typical Alaskan take on his story. On the other hand, Jim Gallien was also an adventurer in Alaska who was the last to see McCandless before his journey, and his attitude was much more open minded.

Throughout the novel, Christopher McCandless’s character changed over time. Up to McCandless’s death, he wanted to live with the wild and to be away from civilization as far as possible. He changes his mind when he writes “HAPPINESS ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED” (189). His purpose of living in the wild is to live with freedom and do whatever he wishes to do. However, he realizes he was a “refuge in nature” (189) and intended to abandon his solitary life and rejoin the human community. It is assumed that McCandless died a preventable death because of his unpreparedness, but it is now undeniable that his adversity is what caused his mortality. “…McCandless simple had the misfortune to eat moldy seeds. An innocent mistake, it was nevertheless

“The fact that I survived my Alaska adventure and McCandless did not survive his was largely a matter of chance; had I not returned from the Stikine ice cap in 1977 , people would have been quick to say of me-as they now say of him-that I had a death wish.” (Krakauer Pg.155). Krakauer has an empathetic tone which he uses to show that this could happen to anyone, Christopher was just unlucky that it happened to him.

Jon Krakauer diverges from the story of McCandless’s journey, to inform the readers how all of the other adventures that occurred were similar. He wanted to show how other people were in his situation, that wanted to conquer the world with what the others had with them.

When one delves more deeply into the writing of Krakauer it is obvious that there are many literary aspects driving his work. The author uses ethical appeal, which is supported by colloquial language when referring to his protagonist. Not only does Krakauer strive to tell a both fascinating and intriguing story in Into The Wild, but he also looks to gain the credibility of the audience. Before the publishing of this book in 1996, the most intimate writing on McCandless was a 9,000 word essay by Krakauer titled Death of an Innocent. Though this gave way to significant circulation of information on McCandless, and his endured circumstance, the article published in Outside magazine was not nearly as elaborate as his published book. Krakauer used Into The Wild as a stepping point for himself, but also as a mechanism for him to connect to an audience. Throughout the book, Krakauer refers to McCandless as “Chris”, yielding people to feel more in touch with the storyline and it’s characters. Though pathos infused in Krakauer’s writing, he is continually attempting to win over the audience ethically in his book. The author uses McCandless’s first name to get his audience to religiously believe his story, but also his take on what had occurred leading up to 1992. Krakauer says, “Many aspects of Chris’s personality

This acknowledgement is based on assumption, but it is very sound assumption. No one truly knows how Chris McCandless died. Krakauer thinks that McCandless’ cause of death was possibly a mold known as R. leguminicola which may have contaminated his seeds. Out of all the possible causes of death, this cause seems to be the most plausible. If Krakauer’s thought was the cause of McCandless’ death, it would prove that McCandless was not “a reckless idiot” (iii). Rather it shows that “McCandless simply had the misfortune to eat moldy seeds” (194). This also means that “he didn’t carelessly confuse one species with another” and that “the guy wasn’t quite as reckless or incompetent as he [had] been made out to be” (194). Other theories as to how McCandless died include the possibility of eating a poisonous potato plant or even the toxicity from a wild plant’s seeds. The fact that makes Krakauer’s idea the most plausible is he is able to go through each of the theories and logically assess the given facts until he has made it seem as if that particular theory was not even possible to begin with. All of the other theories that the reader is presented with have one thing in common. In order to be true, they require that McCandless be “a reckless idiot” (iii). However, Krakauer breaks down every other plausible death theory until there is only one left. Coincidentally it is the only theory that, if true, would prove that McCandless was

Jon Krakauer reveals the good in McCandless that is hidden from all his other previous mistakes. Although McCandless struggles with the concept of intimacy, he is gifted in the act of perseverance. Another thing McCandless has learned is survival, as presented with how long he stayed alive with limited resources. McCandless is a hard working individual as Krakauer as stated through the theme of perseverance. McCandless has many travel experiences, he’s traveled across vast parts of America, which is quite challenging especially with the lack of money because the world is a very materialistic place. His adventure through Mexico is another example of his survival skills as he only had very limited amounts of rice as food. Lastly, before he died

3. Krakauer argues in Chapter 14 that McCandless’s death was unplanned and was a terrible accident (134). Does the book so far support that position? Do you agree with Krakauer? Why or why not?

In April of 1992, a young man of the age of twenty-four, later determined to be Chris McCandless ' body, was discovered in an old Fairbanks bus in the Alaskan bush. Four years after his death, Jon Krakauer wrote a novel titled Into The Wild, the book traced McCandless 's journey around much of the United States, across the West side of Canada, and even down to the boarder of Mexico. Over the many years since his death, speculations have arisen about how death was brought upon him. Most believe starvation was the only reason, but with extensive research Jon Krakauer discovered another theory, that a substance in the seeds that Chris McCandless was ingesting was a contributing factor to his death. Even with this conclusion many around the world despise Chris for his being naive and unprepared when walking into the wild. While others believe he was brave for following his dreams and never letting anyone talk him out of his plans. Chris McCandless was an adventurer who was brave enough to never back down, but in the end his luck turned for the worst and was misfortunate enough to have ate the wrong type of food. McCandless was an inspiration and a lesson to people of all ages, that dreams aren 't meant to be taken lightly and even with possible risks they should be followed. Jon Krakauer 's book tells a marvelous story of a young man who left behind the outside world to do what he loved the most.

Impartiality can be defined as “not partial or biased; fair; just” (Dictionary.com). When biographers tell someone else’s story, they often struggle to maintain impartiality. A biography is almost never, if at all, a collection of entirely truths with no mention of opinion. A biographer can simply not remain completely impartial. Like many others before him and many following as well, Krakauer clearly fails to hit the mark of impartiality.