Shannon Essay

Chris made an “indelible impression” on most of the people he met “during the course of his [wild adventure]” and his death affected them greatly (Krakauer 48). One

Stephen Ambrose’s Undaunted Courage is a remarkable piece of nonfiction literature. His work is so thorough that one wonders how he has time to do much more. Yet he has created time in his life to go west and go camping and hiking and canoeing in the summers with his family. Which possibly shows that anything can be raw material to the open mind, for it was on those trips that he developed a great fascination with the Lewis and Clark expedition that explored the West when the country was twenty-five years old. Ambrose creates a precise and true story of the expedition in witch most readers would be enthralled. His style is smooth, readable and enjoyable, unlike many historical nonfiction of the day.

Multiple accounts assumed McCandless was “entering the wilderness purposely ill-prepared…” and “hardly unique…almost a collective cliché” (Krakauer 71). Krakauer refutes this claim by displaying evidence supporting his argument while also acknowledging counter claims that McCandless was rash, foolhardy, but stressing he was definitely competent (85). Krakauer compares and contrasts the journeys of Rosellini, Waterman, and McCunn to that of McCandless defending that McCandless was not incapable or oblivious to survive in Alaska. Later parallels between McCandless and Ruess demonstrate their desires to become connected to nature and strong determination.

The 1920’s were a time of great triumph. The economy was strong and inventions made life prosper and made life the way it is today. But behind the scenes of hard work there was entertainment. There, of course, were sports, but there was no one as influential as Bobby Jones.

In the events leading up to his death he is met with with a transition from happiness to misery, influenced by forces beyond his control.

"They say you had to see him to believe that a man so fine could exist. He

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to explore a land that nobody has ever explored before? This is exactly what Lewis and Clark did when the United States purchased a very large amount of land in The Louisiana Purchase. The Corps of Discovery was one of most important expeditions at that time. We will be going over three main points. The preparation of the journey, the journey itself, and the aftermath of the journey will be the main point of this paper.. Although the journey was hard, they succeeded.

Turner’s frontier hypothesis glorifies the independent hero displaying fortitude in the face of arduous challenge. However, in Frontier Literature, the constant theme of unplanned isolation underlies protagonists’ development from frontier wanderer to true frontier hero, serving as a prerequisite for the protagonists’ display of fortitude along the frontier. In L’amour’s The Gift of Cochise, McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses, and Weir’s The Martian, unplanned isolation serves as the backdrop for the protagonists to prove their worth as the frontier hero. Each text provides a character of ostensible powerlessness—Angie as a woman, John Grady Cole as a young boy, and Mark

Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in his famous poem Paul Revere’s Ride, tells of the heroic and famous ride of Paul Revere during the American War for Independence. His use of pathos, logos, and ethos in this illustrious work give readers an excellent mental image of this important event in our history, and allow this to seem both a real event, and a fiction story meant to stir the imagination and intrigue readers. This work is an excellent depiction of the event, albeit not perfectly historically accurate. The poem gives readers an excellent sense of the situation our rider is in, and is very much worth reading.

When people go on cruise trips, one of the reasons they intend to enjoy their time off is to experience the sights and sounds of the open sea. In Annie Dillard’s Mornings Like This, she includes in her collection of found poems a poem that instills a similar vivid sense of imagery that one would experience by the ocean. Her found poem, called “The Pathfinder of the Seas,” includes a variety of words and sentences that relate to sailing in the sea. They were extracted from other books related to scientific research of the sky and the sea. The author brings together these distinct elements and structures them in a poem. This gives them a new home and, subsequently, gives the work a new meaning. Her goal for the reader is to question their previous knowledge and find a new perspective on life through the interactions with the sea in her poem.

Laura Hillenbrand writes the story of a heroic war veteran and past Olympic athlete Louis Zamperini in her publication, Unbroken. Even though Zamperini survives being a prisoner of war in multiple, abusive camps of Japan, his expedition begins with him being stranded at sea for forty seven days after a horrific plane crash. In Stephen Crane’s poem, “A Man Adrift”, the speaker of the poem describes being stranded at sea just like Louie was in 1942. Even though the poem is fictional, its stanzas can be related to Zamperini’s true experience and convey contrasting and similar emotions.

For the first major essay of this semester, the class was assigned to analyze and defend a poem of our choosing from the Poetry Foundation website; however, there was catch; we were only allowed to choose one poem to save from a massive destruction if the website decided to banish. The poem I chose was “The Powwow at the End of the World” by Sherman Alexie because I love his work and the fact that he is a famous Native American writer. Despite the interest I had for the poem, writing this essay had some ups and downs.

Carter appeals to the reader's sense of understanding with personal anecdote. He recalls his visit to the Refuge saying, “One of the most unforgettable and humbling experiences of our lives occurred on the coastal plain,”. This immediately makes the audience aware of Carter’s deep feelings for the Refuge. They can see that it has left a lasting impression on him. It also makes him a more credible speaker because it shows that he has knowledge on this topic. To further entice the reader he mentions, “In a matter of minutes, the sweep of tundra before us became flooded with life,with the sounds of grunting animals and clicking hooves filling the air,”. Adding these details envelops the audience in senses making it seem like they have experienced

The song “Jenny” was written by and originally performed by the hard rock band Nothing More. The song is about the lead singer’s mother lying on her death bed; meanwhile the lead singer’s sister was addicted to hard drugs. In this essay I will elaborate on the reasons why the song was written, how it affected the writer, and the benefit the writer had from this song.

Unlike the wandering narrator, the seafaring narrator focuses his descriptions of the community that is present in nature. The seafarer the utterly rejects the notion that a “sheltering family / could bring consolation for his desolate soul” (25-26). This “sheltering family” (25) that the seafaring narrator alludes to in this line is the exact form of close-knit family that the narrator in “The Wanderer” laments for desperately. While the seafaring narrator offers striking similar descriptions of the landscape being “bound by ice” (9), he does not focus on these descriptions to dwell on the loss of an earthly community. Instead, the narrator in “The Seafarer” finds the landscape that he inhabits wonderfully abundant with natural — even spiritual — elements that are commonly associated with an earthly community. In the barren landscape, the seafaring narrator discovers “the wild swan’s song / sometimes served for music” (19-20) and “the curlew’s cry for the laugher of men” (20-21). These vibrant and vivid descriptions of the natural world that the narrator discovers in the harsh,