Suffering In Into Thin Air

In this passage from Jon Krauaker's Into Thin Air, Jon Krauaker does not display the sense of accomplishment that one would expect from achieving such a difficult endeavor. He really displays a sense of grief and dissatisfaction from what he had accomplished. For taking a risk as life threatening as this, in Krauaker's eyes, he couldn't possibly be proud of what he had done when so many men had lost their lives during the same excursion that he journeyed on. Throughout this novel, Jon Krauaker uses immense amounts of rhetorical devices to display his emotion to convey his attitude toward the dangers of climbing Mt. Everest.

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

Knowing that the wilderness can be extremely rough, people can understand that there is only a small chance of coming out alive after a long period of time of living there. McCandless and Ruess are examples of these instances; however, Krakauer lived to tell the story. McCandless suffered from starvation and natural disasters. He indicated all his struggles in his journal entries: “he’d written “4th day famine” in his journal” (164). After his ineffective attempt of leaving, he “turned around …back toward the bus” and died shortly (171). Although Ruess’s death was never confirmed, controversies revolved around the incident. Bewildering tales of his death included “death while scrambling on one or another canyon wall” and “[murdered] by a team of cattle rustlers” (94). Krakauer on the other hand, was the only individual out of the three to survive his expedition. In his narrative of his attempt at the Devil’s Thumb, he includes the phrase: “The climb was over” (144). This short sentence creates an artificial tone in which he expresses a very emotionless attitude after completing the harsh odyssey.

“As a youth, [Krakauer was] told, [he] was willful, self-absorbed, intermittently reckless, moody. [He] disappointed [his] father…. Like McCandless, figures of male authority aroused in [him]…confusing medley of corked fury and hunger to please. If something captured [his] undisciplined imagination, [he] pursued it with a zeal bordering on obsession, and from the age of seventeen until [his] late twenties that something was mountain climbing” (134).

Competition is what drives human. It’s been instilled in our genes since birth; humans are born screaming for attention, and fulfill their lives in various areas through competition unbeknownst to them. So, naturally, when climbing the mountain that has the highest summit above sea level, competition is a given factor. The driving concept of competition is an evident theme in Into Thin Air written by survivor Jon Krakauer who saw the evolution of friendly rivalry between Rob Hall and Scott Fischer who each lead individual teams. However, the real competition, maybe only existing in the mind of the author, lies between Jon Krakauer and Anatoli Boukreev who both reside in differing teams.

We were all encouraged to choke down as much food as possible. Any kind of energy was essential. A melancholy atmosphere hung heavy as the journey progressed. Minutes walking slowly progressed into hours, the sky seemed to darken steadily. All of us were oblivious to the danger shrouded by the dim evening. Only moments after scaling a rather steep ledge did nature dice to turn sour. A deafening rumble made each climber perk up. Snow began to descend at an alarming rate. Thunder began to mic the steady beating of a drum, causing more concern among the ranks of climbers. The powdery snow became more of a risk than ever, climbing under pressure and leaving nothing to stand on. Third base was more than three hours away. Three hours wasn't possible at the rate. Snowfall this bad could be detrimental to the climb’s success. Snow obscured vision and numbed faces. Shouts and orders deemed lost in the screaming wind; people’s figure became shapeless blurs frantically shifting, hoping if they struggled against the wind hard enough, they might find someone. Of course, this was to no avail. Not a single person doubted their demise would come at this point: the stakes were high and no-one could play too well against Mother Nature. The snow crept up to knee-level, making it harder and harder to travel. Death and I were face-to-face. To some, they couldn't bare the idea of dying up here; they had families and friends, children who need parents and

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.

Jon said,”I thought climbing the Devil’s Thumb would fix all that was wrong in my life. In the end, of course, it changed almost nothing. But I came to appreciate that mountains make poor receptacles for dreams.” What Krakauer means by this is that he hopes that climbing the Devil’s Thumb would take away his loneliness, but the journey’s merriment quickly faded away. Jon wasn’t happy with his dead-end job, so he decided to climb the mountain. But sadly, he soon discovered that the mountain was not the answer. Krakauer returns back home to get the same dissatisfying life. What Jon means is that climbing mountains won’t solve all of your problems in

Vulnerability impacts any individual throughout each new and interactive experience. To become vulnerable is to open up to the consequences of frantic outcomes. Individuals will lead to vulnerability to cope with a trauma that has created a solemn change to a lifestyle. Jon Krakauer explains how the trauma of Mt. Everest changed his outlooks on reality, through different coping mechanisms. Krakauer uses his writing in his book, Into Thin Air, to cope with the guilt of surviving the terror that occurred upon Mt. Everest, as well as to understand what actions caused each outcome. Within an excerpt from Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer is reflective towards his audience of how vulnerability shaped the experiences upon Mt. Everest to cope with the

Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air has shown me different aspects of survival, differentiating from the ones on T.V or fictional books. It has made me realize that not all good guys live, not all bad guys die. It has changed the way I look at things, for better and worse. And now that, having established what Krakauer’s story has meant to me, comes a time post-epilogue to his book to think and reflect on a simple question: What does Into Thin Air mean to

The constant huffing and puffing of heavy breathing, exhausting in itself. The stop and go pace that we were going felt painful because of the constant hike five hundred feet and stop. The worst part, starting again after stopping because we would sling an insanely heavy pack on to our back and climb. While hiking you could see the pain in people's eyes as you look over at them. Seeing the constant huffing and puffing as they breath heavier and heavier. You could tell when reaching the top, by seeing the breath come from the others around

However, the losses do not deter them on their roads to their goals. Moreover, the suffering that they had even drive them to persuade their goal even more. “Epic of Gilgamesh” and “Frankenstein” are a prime examples of how pain and suffering can push human to exceed their limitation.

As Tom and Brendan talk about plans for their future climb of Mount Everest, Tom reaches the top of the hill with ease, this symbolic moment allows Tom to reflect of his transition personally and how important his relationships with Brendan and Chrissy have been in supporting him. Tom’s thoughts of “shedding with each kilometre, like layers of skin falling onto the track” as he runs with Brendan is a simile which allows the reader to understand how Tom is feeling and the relief of not having the weight on his shoulders anymore. This achievement and realisation symbolises the growth and change in values and perspective of self that have been achieved through the support of new relationships which have allowed Tom to overcome past events.

With death being an inevitable conclusion to life, it can be said that the true value of a life is not determined by how long it was lived or what was done during its time, but from what it left behind. In a sport of pushing the physical and psychological boundaries, climbers seek recognition in their achievements, whether it is by finding a new climb that will measure its test of time or being the first to climb a daunting line

When climbers get up to the death zone, their bodies get weaker.lack of oxygen and climbing for hours doesn't help.The food they eat doesn't get digested and is not used for energy, that way they have nothing to use while