Into The Wild, Final Reflection

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Into The Wild. From the beginning, Krakauer presented Chris McCandless as a reckless youth seduced by the philosophies of Jack London and Henry David Thoreau whose death could have been prevented;but the beauty of McCandless's story was that it was deeper than it appeared. McCandless not unlike many other adventure seekers who wandered into the unforgiving Alaskan wilderness, but according to Krakauer, McCandless had a heightened sense of what it meant to connect with nature, it was more than just an escape for him, it was a way of life. Krakauer identified with McCandless's upper-middle class upbringing and strained relationship with his father. Krakauer recognized the depth of McCandless's reasoning, depth that was lacking in the actions of the other adventurers lost to the wild. McCandless shared that reckless spirit that has led all the great mountaineers to the top of Everest and subsequently into solitude, but McCandless had a way of connecting with people that most other explorers lacked. Usually the journals of explorers are used as a portal into their thoughts , used to understand the emotional journey they experienced on their expeditions; they tend to reveal very intimate things about their experiences. McCandless wrote his journals in the third person, and most of them are only philosophical reflections revealing very little about his impressions and emotions. The majority of what is known about McCandless is through the people he met on his journey and his influence on their lives. The fact that it is a human connection that tells the most about this young man is evidence that despite the solitude he sought, he was deeply connected to people as well as nature. I found this to be the most intriguing aspect of McCandless's story. As Krakauer revealed, there are many people who have shunned society to find meaning in nature, but none that have been able to connect so deeply with both humanity and the wild.

Into The Wild Journal 3

Before I began reading this book I knew that it would contain very complex and seductive philosophical ideas about nature and freedom and happiness, this is why I was so excited to read it in the first place. By telling McCandless' story and the stories of people like him, this book depicts what can happen when people follow that desire that I suspect everyone has to be completely and genuinely free. Free from society, responsibility, the meaninglessness of living according to the rules of a mundane reality. This book allows everyone who so wants to experience something greater than what they know, to imagine the beauty that the people in this book find when they immerse themselves in nature and experience ultimate freedom. Up until this most recent section, this book has mostly focused on what people like McCandless found on their voyages, but this latest section has focused on the kind of people they were that allowed them to follow their desires. The author has now begun to share his own experiences and the similarities between himself and McCandless. The book has become a lot more tragic now because, not only does the author share the dark side of his own experience with this kind of lifestyle, but he talks to McCandless' family and finds the darkness in Chris's life. In order for both Chris and the author to find what they thought they were looking for, they had to cut all human relationships. Chris's family hadn't heard from him for two years before they heard he had died this left a huge hole in all of them that caused immense pain they still experience today. Chris did this because he was passionately resentful of his parents and therefore believed he owed them nothing, this shows that he was probably in pain as well because if he wasn't, he probably would have talked about his family with more indifference instead of anger. The author talks about the loneliness he suffered with on his excursions and how this taught him about the beauty that exists in the mundane which he was blind to before.

Into The Wild Journal 2

Jon Krakauer's book Into the Wild isn't a traditional memoir; it’s more of a combination of a biography and memoir that create a thrilling and very philosophical story. Krakauer focuses on the journey of Chris McCandless as he hitchhiked into Alaska living off the land, and eventually starving to death in an abandoned bus. In order to tell McCandless' story Krakauer retraced the young man’s footsteps and talked to the people McCandless met and influenced on his expedition. In order to compensate for the limited knowledge of McCandless' thoughts and feelings Krakauer draws parallels to McCandless and his own experiences as well as the experiences of others who are known to have lived life much like McCandless. Krakauer tells the story of a twenty-year-old named Everett Ruess who was a nature enthusiast much like McCandless and who traveled the country looking for answers and freedom. A lot more is known about Ruess' thoughts because he shared his feelings with others more than McCandless did, and so by comparing the events in Ruess' life to those in McCandless’ Krakauer is able to give deeper insights as to what McCandless may have been thinking and feeling. Krakauer draws on the stories of many other infamous characters well known in the mountaineering community in order to add depth to McCandless' story. The variety of people Krakauer compares to McCandless reveals the many different lessons that can be learned from his life and allows the reader to draw their own conclusions as well.

A Childhood Place Revisited

Aunt Velma and Uncle Chuck live on a farm in the middle of nowhere in rural South Dakota. The bubble of dust created by gravel roads, and the vast amount of land separating the house from any other sign of civilization makes this farm feel like a separate world. Kittens are scattered everywhere, at least fifty of them jolt from barn to barn avoiding the dog and little kids yearning to play with them. The old windmill is in constant motion above the big red barn that's bursting with hay, and tools, and banana spiders. Anywhere else the sweltering heat would be something to complain about, but here its a familiar comfort that forces everyone out of the small stuffy house and creates a center of activity on the circle of mowed grass in front serving as a front yard. Aside from the dog and kittens the only animals Velma and Chuck own are Tiny the sheep, and one cow. When all the cousins come over there are races in the fields with motorized go-carts, and lots of water fights. As the humidity begins to mellow and the sky turns red from the setting sun, everyone heads inside to avoid the mosquitoes. After eating large portions of meat accompanied by fresh corn on the cob everyone heads off to crowded beds fitting at least three people each.


Aunt Velma is actually my dad's aunt, not mine. Uncle Chuck passed away along with the cow and kittens. The dog has grown so old and covered with tumors he moves as slow as the run down windmill. Everything smells like manure since the enormous dairy farm was built about one mile away, it has more cows than Velma has acres. As the cousins grew up and moved far away no one was able to keep the go-carts working. The barns are still full of hay and banana spiders, but the tools have rusted and the paint is peeling. The heat is slightly less bearable with the smell of manure, and the lack of water fights. The sky still turns blood red before the stars come out though, and fresh corn on the cob is still a constant. Tiny is still alive, and as long as he is Velma says she's not going anywhere.

Momaday Reaction

"This angle is a certain delineation on the face of the Great Plains, an idea of geometry in the mind of God"

While reading N. Scott Momaday's The Names: A Memoir this passage really stood out to me, especially the last line about God's geometry. The way Momaday connected God to the human idea of geometry allowed me to picture the landscape he was describing in a different way. Although the paths of rivers appear to be somewhat random to most people, Momaday saw in them a purposeful design with reason and patterns. Without using any descriptive language, Momaday was able to portray a detailed image.

"Lightning is constant on the cold, black hemisphere"

The way in which Momaday connected the idea of lighting, something bright and violent, to something cold, black and still added a sense of drama to the piece of writing which really caught my attention. Momaday added to this contrast with the conflicting idea of lightning being constant. Lightning is something that is quick, a fast flash that comes and goes almost simultaneously and randomly, by describing it as a constant Momaday differentiated this place in his memory from all other places.