Transcendentalism In Chris Krakauer's Into The Wild

Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement that revolved around the works and ideas of Ralph Waldo Emerson. The transcendentalist wrote about his discoveries while studying philosophy, religion and literature. In Emerson’s collection of essays, Nature, he stresses the concept of finding one’s own personal understanding of the universe. In another one of Emerson’s works he presents the over-soul-- which goes into deeper detail of the unity of God, man and nature. Chris McCandless, the protagonist of the novel Into the Wild, written by Jon Krakauer, tells the story of a young male who elects to leave his upper-middle class life and travel the United States . Chris McCandless was heavily influenced by Emerson and became a living example of Emerson’s works.

Transcendentalism is defined as the philosophical movement that manage an insistence to the idea of culture and society. For example, Robinson gave a meaning of it with the quote, “This philosophy,

Often, in movies, the director of the movie tries to connect the story of the movie to the subject of American Literature. One of the movie called Into the Wild, the director Sean Penn, tries to connect the movie to the tenets of Transcendentalism. In the movie Into the Wild, a character named Chris McCandless’s tries to relate his life to the tenets of Transcendentalism throughout the movie. Chris decides to leave the society and tries to live his life in the wild. Chris relies on nature to help him survive in the wild. Chris tries to live a different life from the people in the society, and lives the life, as the way he wants to live his life. In the movie Into the Wild by Sean Penn, Penn shows Chris McCandless with the belief of being connected to simplicity, non-conformist, and nature in order to highlight the

What is transcendentalism? How is Christopher J. McCandless a transcendentalist? Transcendentalism is a philosophy, and a way of life. It consists of being a non-conformist, becoming one with nature, and rejecting materialism. Throughout Jon Krakauer’s novel, Into The Wild, McCandless happens to achieve all of the above. “Whoso would be a man, must be a non-conformist” (Emerson). He defied society, lived in the wild, and never cared about “things”. He existed off the land in Alaska, the west coast, and even Mexico. McCandless did not want anything else in life but happiness; he found this in the wilderness.

The book Into the Wild is a story based on transcendentalism. Chris McCandless is the main character, and the book is all about his journey he had taken to Alaska. In the end, we ultimately learn that Mccandless did not come out alive. Throughout the book, Into the Wild, McCandless executes many transcendental actions including reduce dependence on property, non-conformity, and self-reliance.

Do you think that you can survive in the wilderness for two years like Henry David Thoreau did? Transcendentalism was a movement in New England and Ralph Waldo Emerson is the father of this. Transcendentalism means to reconnect with nature and to reconnect with a better self. It also creates a connection to nature and self-reliance; these are the most important ideas of transcendentalism. Transcendentalism is something that you can do at your own pace. You do not have to go faster than you need to or slower than you need. It’s like self paced learning. These themes are still relevant in today's society because people go hunting, some people go out into the woods to see how long they can survive by themselves to reconnect with nature, and

In Into the Wild tells the tale of Alexander Supertramp venturing out into the wild and leaving his whole life behind to live out on the road. Throughout the movie, it engages naturalist and transcendental ideas. Inspired by Emerson and Thoreau, Chris faces naturalism because he is unprepared for his life in the wild. He is part of the majority that believes that when you love nature, nature will love you back but alas nature doesn’t care who you are, it’s always ruthless. Alexander liked the challenge of following the norm and challenging himself to survive an unforgiving wilderness landscape of Alaska.

Into the Wild This essay will explain the similarities in the writings of Emerson, Thoreau, Krakauer, and Donovan. All writers I have listed all have something to do with transcendentalism, especially Thoreau and Emerson, both writers published major books during the transcendentalism era, transcendentalism is a way people, during the early 1830s, would express independence, simplicity, and individuality through all of nature. The books they wrote were Thoreau’s Walden and Emerson’s Nature, the other book and poem we will discuss is Krakauer’s Into the Wild and Donovan’s “It's All-On-Me”. The shared themes between these writers would be their sense of independence.

Be confident about yourself and your thoughts, not conforming to others and embrace nature. Transcendentalism is a journey for truth and reality. It creates new ideas and an understanding of life.

Transcendentalism is when one goes beyond the regular human experiences of the material world and society to find true peace. Thoreau’s “Walden” is about leaving the cities, abandoning one’s possessions and living out in nature to find one 's true self. Emerson’s “Self- Reliance” is about resisting society and living true to oneself and never following society’s standards. A modern Transcendentalist named Josh from the novel The Gospel According to Larry by Janet Tashjian follows in the footsteps of Emerson and Thoreau and tries to live a Transcendentalist way of life. When a person does follow the transcendentalist way of life, they will find that it will always lead back to the material world and society and that they cannot escape it. The Transcendentalist way of life is not a beneficial way of life.’

In Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer used diction to suggest that Chris McCandless felt imprisoned in the rich upper class society of the east coast and therefore justified Chris’ departure and adventure. Chris wished to escape his rich yet insufficient past by venturing to a place that defy the principle of his old prison-like life. For years Chris suffered through a deficiency of self-actualization in his “tastefully decorated, spotless” home in Annandale, a materialistic home, where the soil for idealism was not fertile(104). There was no room for an ideological existence based on free will because Chris’s parent could not tolerate anything that did not fall into line. “An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road” - Chris did

Transcendentalism is the philosophy of rising above traditional empirical thinking and use one’s own intuition instead. In other words transcendentalism is the idea of “lifting us above the conflicts and struggles that weigh on our souls.” (Brodrick.) With the restraints of everyday life forgotten, it becomes easier to feel a stronger sense of freedom and unity with others around us. One reason why Thoreau had troubles with converting people to transcendentalism was in part because people had a hard time completely abandoning the facts and theories they had always known for new imagined ideas. In the 1800s, people preferred absolute theories on which they could stand on instead of practices that did not have any backing to them. In today’s society though, there are an innumerable number of new ideas and opinions that would shock people back then. Transcendentalism may have been a way of living that was too soon before its own time, but with all the progressiveness that is seen in society today transcendentalism may have a fighting chance of becoming a popular movement.

When I was first exposed to the concept of Transcendentalism in my English class, the idea seemed farfetched and rather abstract. Upon further readings and research, I discovered that the concepts, although they originally seemed esoteric, where works of true brilliance. Society has made it hard for individuals to exist when things like popular culture seemingly brainwash youth into doing whatever is considered “cool”. Transcendentalism is a powerful concept which should be acknowledged by my generation, for the points encompassed in Transcendentalism are more vital today than ever. Transcendentalism is the philosophy of striving to live a life of independence, simplicity, and oneness with nature.

Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement that began in the early nineteenth century in America. One of the major tenets of transcendentalism is that society and social institutions corrupt the purity of an individual. Transcendentalists believe that individuals should believe in themselves and not conform to others’ beliefs. They think that society is a major reason why individuals lack self determination and the ability to possess their own values.

Transcendentalism is a strong believe that the thinker believes in a higher reality and truth than what the normal sense of human knowledge or experience can explain, emphasizing human nature, truth, simplicity, comfort and the importance of comfort, emphasizing human intuition, people only by virtue of spiritual intuition to achieve the best living conditions. The Transcendentalists place an emphasis on imagination, insight, and inspiration. Transcendentalists emphasize the freedom of humanity, and they place highest value on the soul.