The Pastoral And Wilderness Story Template Essay

In 1990 at the age of 22, Chris McCandless started his journey to travel the country and live off the land alone. He survived well until he hitchhiked to Alaska in 1992. Chris thought that if he could make it there, he could make it anywhere. Four months after going off the grid in the Alaskan wilderness, his decomposed body was discovered by a party of hunters. The nonfiction novel, Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, is his story. It has many important themes that define the life of Chris McCandless. A couple themes, for example, are having the feeling of ultimate freedom and seeking happiness through a personal challenge.

Sixty days of carrying 80-pound backpacks, sleeping under a tarp for shelter in the Utah winter – welcome to “wilderness therapy.”

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.

The sun was glistening through the tall, swaying pines. To the right of the trail, a gentle river flowed softly down towards the mouth of the lake. Walking across the rickety wooden bridge, I inhaled a deep breath of refreshingly crisp mountain air. The sun beat down on me as I made my way across the bridge and back onto the well-used hiking trail. The ambient sounds of chirping birds, babbling water, and the croaks of several frogs filled my ears as I made my way around the bend. As I entered the mouth of the forest, I could see my father standing in the middle of the path, glancing upwards, taking in the beauty that had began to engulf us. “We better get going.” he said, looking back at me. “There’s still many miles to go.” I smiled and turned, taking in one last view of the beautiful creekside. Then, with determination, we set out to finish the challenging trek we had started.

In “The Trouble with Wilderness,” William Cronon illustrates the paradox within the notion of wilderness, describing that if wilderness is that which lies beyond civilization -- beyond humankind, then so is the notion of nature outside the realm of the human... that humans are therefore, unnatural. Further, he explains that if our concept of nature (and ultimately our concept of God) is outside of humanity, then our existence is synonymous with the downfall of nature. That wilderness is purely a construct of civilization is central to this argument.  For example, Cronon asserts that “the removal of Indians to create an ‘uninhabited wilderness’---uninhabited as never before in human history of the place---reminds us just how invented, just how constructed, the American wilderness really is” (pg.79). Instead of in isolation from civilization, Cronon finds that his most spiritual experiences with nature have always been closer to home… a sense of wildness (versus wilderness) can be found in one’s backyard, gazing from a front porch, and in the melding of the human experience with mother nature. One of Into the Wild’s final scenes drives home this idea by altering the literal point of view that main character, Chris McCandless, has had of both himself and of the world since the beginning of his two year journey.  Into the Wild attempts to dramatizes Cronon’s argument to rethink wilderness; we will examine how the film succeeds, and where it fails, to support its premise.

During the summer before my Freshman year I went to hell and back, and by hell I mean Philmont scout ranch. Just a little background, Philmont scout ranch is 140,117 thousand acres of big rugged, dry, mountainous terrain. I knew what I was getting into, Ever since I joined boy scouts Philmont was regarded as the ultimate scouting experience, so of course i was pressured into that. Eventually summer rolled around and before I knew it I was on a train to New Mexico.

Chris’s passion for the wild began in his childhood. His father, Walt, would take him hiking every year since the age of eight. Theses backpacking trips ignited a longing for adventure that was unquenchable. In chapter five of Into The Wild, the author, Jon Krakauer writes, “McCandless was stirred by the austerity of this landscape, by its saline beauty. The desert sharpened the sweet ache of his longing, amplified it, gave shape to it in sere geology and clean slant of light.” Krakauer refers to Chris’s passion for nature to guide the reader toward a better understanding of his character. For someone who is not entranced by wilderness like McCandless was, it helps to understand how he became infatuated with it. Chris respected nature to such an extreme that when he was dying in the

According to William Cronon’s “The Trouble with Wilderness”, the main concerns with the wilderness term being humanly constructed and lack of concern with the local environments. Cronon emphasize much of the historical and philological meanings of wilderness as a human construct via spiritual and religious perspectives. He desired for people stop putting so much emphasis on the above and beyond that is out of our reach and focus on the present. He pushed this into the idea of one should start putting emphasis and care into one’s own environment rather than just focusing on environments beyond the local one. He believes change should start locally.

Strayed describes her surroundings in vivid detail, from the heat of the Mojave Desert to the weight of her massive hiking backpack. Imagery is used much more frequently at the beginning of the memoir, as further on in the book Strayed says she had “come to take [the scenery] for granted” (223). She also uses imagery more often in the beginning because she describes more of the scenery in the beginning and does not reflect as much on the past, as she is more focused on “concentrating on… my feet thudding against the dry and rocky trail, the brittle leaves and branches of low-lying bushes” (50). However, as she nears the end of the trip, she spends less time detailing the scenery because she is spending more time coming to terms with her upbringing and her mother’s death. Strayed uses imagery most of all in order to more adequately describe her surroundings to the

Into the Wild, a book about a man who ran away from childhood problems and decided to walk into the wilderness by himself after getting rid of all of his materialistic items like his car and money, and Walden, a book about a man who ran towards simplicity and solitude to understand what life was really about, are two incredible. The stories are timeless and will still be talked about in fifty years. The protagonists, Thoreau and Chris, had their differences and similarities. A big difference between them is their motives for leaving the city and going into the wilderness; Thoreau wanted to live life to the fullest, while Chris wanted to leave the problems at home. Both Chris and Thoreau rejected materialism, and they both respected animals.

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

At times of strife with oneself and during periods in one’s life, people tend to find answers or peace by disassociating from their immediate surroundings and replacing it with the natural world. Although Wild by Cheryl Strayed and Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer share the same word in their titles, the two are completely different stories with separate narrative purposes. Wild is about the author’s journey of self-discovery and self-acceptance through hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, and Into the Wild is the author’s discovery of Chris Mccandless’s natural journey, which ultimately led him to his death. Even though the ending of Wild leads to Strayed’s renewal of life, and the ending of Into the Wild leads to the insight on the ending of

Hearts beating in the silence, runners anxious to complete their last meet of the year with a good note. The voices of fans yelling things we already know vanishes as the man in a yellow coat with a racing gun stands in front of us giving vivid instructions about the next eighteen minutes of pain.

It was a calm, overcast day, and I found myself resting at the side of a large oak tree, admiring the beauty of the woods that surrounded me.

In North America, the classic voice of the colonizing person’s connectedness to nature and a has been the romantic individualist writing of wilderness.