The American Wilderness

Throughout Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, there are many details that help give the reader a deeper, more profound, meaning of the book's intended purpose. Krakauer is one of the most renowned American writers, publishing many books focused specifically focused on nature, and people’s struggles in nature. Through much of the book, Krakauer incorporates many examples of diction and imagery to help the reader grasp the essence of the book. By using a wide range of literary techniques, Krakauer is able to communicate the events that transpired throughout the book.

In Jon Krakauer's novel Into the Wild, the main character, Chris McCandless, seeks nature so that he can find a sense of belonging and the true meaning of who he is. However, it is the essence of nature that eventually takes his life away from him. At the end of his life, he is discovers his purpose and need of other people. After Chris McCandless death in Alaska, Krakauer wrote Into the Wild to reflect on the journey that McCandless makes. Krakauer protrays McCandless as a young man who is reckless, selfish, and arrogant, but at the same time, intelligent, determined, independent, and charismatic. Along with the irony that occurs in nature, these characteristics are the several factors that contribute to McCandless death.

Throughout his journey, McCandless met several people who genuinely wanted to help and befriend him. However, he was so committed to his Alaskan Odyssey that he felt like human relationships were just a distraction, not a necessity. One of these people, Ronald Franz, enjoyed McCandless’ company so much that he wanted to adopt him. McCandless reacted to this proposition by pursuing a job offer and discreetly slipping out of Franz’s life. Once the job offer proved to be a fluke, McCandless desperately called Franz and asked for a ride. By asking for help in the form of a car, McCandless demonstrates that his journey was beginning to challenge his beliefs. Although McCandless was initially against materialism, he was beginning to realize that it was also beneficial to his journey. By abandoning his old beliefs, McCandless demonstrates that exploring nature is an experience that can significantly change one’s beliefs.

Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, describes the adventure of Christopher McCandless, a young man that ventured into the wilderness of Alaska hoping to find himself and the meaning of life. He undergoes his dangerous journey because he was persuade by of writers like Henry D. Thoreau, who believe it is was best to get farther away from the mainstreams of life. McCandless’ wild adventure was supposed to lead him towards personal growth but instead resulted in his death caused by his unpreparedness towards the atrocity nature.

Despite his inexperience at living off the land, Chris Mccandless managed to survive in the Alaskan wilderness for a time. His adventures across the United States contributed to honing his skills at surviving with inadequate supplies, little money, and few essential tools. Unfortunately This was not enough, and his inexperience on the finer points of outdoor living and general knowledge of particular subjects proved to create more challenges, and finally this inexperience killed him. Particularly, with his successful kill of a moose we see a perfect example of his ignorance, “Then on June 9, he bagged the biggest prize of all: “MOOSE!” (166.) His tendency to brashly tackle everything head on with will and determination ultimately led to his demise, “Overjoyed, the proud hunter took a photograph of himself kneeling over his trophy, rifle triumphantly overhead, his features distorted in a rictus of ecstasy and amazement.” (166.)

Into the Wild, written by John Krakauer tells of a young man named Chris McCandless who 1deserted his college degree and all his worldly possessions in favor of a primitive transient life in the wilderness. Krakauer first told the story of Chris in an article in Outside Magazine, but went on to write a thorough book, which encompasses his life in the hopes to explain what caused him to venture off alone into the wild. McCandless’ story soon became a national phenomenon, and had many people questioning why a “young man from a well-to-do East Coast family [would] hitchhike to Alaska” (Krakauer i). Chris comes from an affluent household and has parents that strived to create a desirable life for him and his sister. As Chris grows up, he

Alfred Joseph Casson’s (1898-1992) art work captures more than the historical representation of the idyllic landscape of the Canadian wilderness. It is the premise of this paper, Casson’s paintings reflect and represent the economic and political environment of two time periods - Post World War I and the Great Depression, and post-World War II. The two examples of his paintings are, The Old Mill Elora, (35.6 x 40.7 cm), 1930, watercolour on paper, in private collection, painted post-World War I during the great depression; and the other Prelude, 1945, oil on Masonite, (76.2 x 91.5 cm), in The Faculty Club, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, painted post-World War II (Paul Duval, 1980, p. 18). Comparative analysis of these two paintings will support this theory as well as research. Casson’s personal perspective was influenced by the economic and political environment at these times which were recorded through his art work, both in his commercial career as an engraver and designer, and, as an artist.

Modern views in regards to wild nature are different from early Westerner’s views, but they are correct for modern people. Unlike modern views to protect and sustain wilderness areas, early Westerners felt wilderness should be conquered. To say that early Westerners were fundamentally mistaken in their views and use of nature isn’t exactly correct. Early Westerner’s understood and appreciated what supplied their basic needs of survival. “One man’s wilderness may be another’s roadside picnic ground” (Nash 1967). This alone shows gratitude as they knew they could not survive without all the resources afforded to them by wilderness.

n the passages “The Last Wilderness Preserve” the impacts that people cause in Antarctica is that we cause a lot of damage that cannot be restored, the pollution we produce erodes the ice wonderland, and that if we were granted access to explore Antarctica greed would take control, and we’d want to colonize it as our own. On the other hand, the passage “A New Land of Opportunity” is the exact opposite of “ The Last Wilderness Preserve”. The impacts that come from “ A New Land of Opportunity” is that, we could find more resources that are beneficial, researchers can find more clues that can help us understand the way life was before Pangea and other theories, and that even though the land is covered in ice there lies beauty underneath.

Hitchhiking with strangers, little money or resources, struggling to find a meal, having no companionship, and fighting for your life; this all comes with a life on the road. It can seem strange to hear or read many tales of people who have chosen to leave their families, jobs, and lives to live an unconventional life of recluse. People who abandon their life of privilege only to vanish into the wilderness’ sometimes never to be heard from again. Jon Krakauer’s book Into the Wild illustrates the true story of Chris McCandless and many others who chose to live on the periphery of societal bounds and in turn endured harsh consequences. While it is important to explore

The journey, the experiences; memories, lessons, the steps to get to the destination from the beginning, has seldom been talked about through the transformation of wilderness. However, the destination is well recognized throughout written history. During the Colonialization of America, there was a belief of wilderness being the land of the devil (Nash, 2012). Which continued to evolve into a legal stance known as The Wilderness Act of 1964, in which it describes wilderness as “area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man's work substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or

I grew up in Ohio, the youngest of five children. We attended the Catholic Church in my small town. I can remember always feeling I wasn’t “good enough” to receive God’s love. I thought it was reserved for those who were more deserving. So by the time I graduated High School, I left the Church, and my wilderness journey began.

During history class as a child I grew up learning of the vast amounts of buffalo that roamed the American wilderness. However, as we all came to learn, Buffalo are scarcely seen today due to early settlers choosing human progress over nature’s preservation (Nesheim 2012). I choose wilderness preservation because I’ve never seen a wild buffalo and I don’t want my children to have the same problem with a different species of animal. Nature provides not only value to human sustainment but also value to the human experience.

Q1). What do you learn about life on the American frontier by watching this film?

The biggest challenge for this sermon in class was combining Andrew’s sermon with my own. After I told him my wilderness plan we decided we would both focus on the wilderness. He would cover the literal wilderness that included nature and I would cover the meaning of the wilderness as it was used in the Bible. In general, my view of the wilderness was as a negative thing while his view of the wilderness has more possibility to be a positive thing. With this being a good format to craft our own sermons from, weaving them together was the hard part. We wanted it to be a true dialogue and not just split Tom Long’s methodology into parts. We each desired to discuss the text and the real world as we spoke instead of assigning the biblical work to one person and the real work examples to the other. This created more work on our own parts but I would say that it was worth the effort. We found natural places where Andrew’s points and my own could be intersected to balance each other out. Quite often we were able to enlighten the other’s point of view and provide a way for our audience to fully hear the good and the bad about the wilderness. We also noticed that we preach with different tones and wondered how that would work with our audience. We thought about consciously matching energy levels but we recalled the value of being true to yourself as you preach and decided to preach as we normally would individually and hope that our styles blended together nicely. In the