Kori Barriteau-IOP
Into The Wild
McCandless’ home life/childhood
- growing up Chris watched as his parents argued and fought.
- He had to deal with his father's infidelity, while struggling with his sense of morality and ethics.
- Chris' high standards of himself and those around him led to his intense desire to be "emancipated from that world of abstraction, false security, parents, and material excess."
- when reading this the reader feels Chris and begins to sympathize for him.
- “Sometimes he tried too hard to make sense of the world, to figure out why people were bad to each other so often.”
- ― Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild
Aspects of Chris McCandless that are revealed through Non-Linear Narrative
Non-Linear Narrative
Jon Krakauer's use of non-linear/fragmented narrative for his rhetorical purpose.
Chris' Death
- The book begins with Chris' death to begin with a clean slate.
- At the start of the book the reader hasn't developed any emotions towards Chris.
- Krakauer chose this on purpose to build on the reader's emotion with Chris' story rather tell it in a traditional beginning middle and end.
Death of An Innocent
His Romanticization of The Wilderness
Nonlinear narrative, disjointed narrative or disrupted narrative is a narrative technique, sometimes used in literature, film, hypertext websites and other narratives, wherein events are portrayed out of chronological order. It is often used to mimic the structure and recall of human memory but has been applied for other reasons as well.
- The wilderness is a large part of the book as a whole. Chris spends most of the novel saving and/or talking about his Alaskan journey and eventually dies in the wild.
- ultimately, I believe that Jon Krakauer respected Chris McCandless because he did what most of us wish we could do and did it. Jon Krakauer wrote"That's what was great about him. He tried. Not many do.”
- Chris believed that the wilderness could bring the epitome of freedom and happiness.
- When faced with Chris' ideals in the novel the reader is meant to feel happy at his youthful spirit of adventure and anticipate the journey themselves. When Chris spoke of his Journey he became light hearted and earnest, in turn the reader is faced with that positive ipression of him.
Chris’ ability to affect peoples lives, before and after death
The Book
"The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences" Jon Krakauer
- Chris' lasting impression can be seen solely through the book itself. Krakauer liked Chris McCandless so much that he wrote a book about him.
- But others have been affected by Chris as well Jan Burres, Bob, Carine McCandless, Ronald Franz and Wayne Westerberg all connected with Chris in some way.
- After Chris' death Ronald Franz was so taken with him that decided to leave his material possessions and live nomadically, regardless of his old age.
- After reading of Chris' effect on the people he meets, the reader begins to feel as if Chris was a good, social person who had a way of getting into a person's life whether they realized it or not.
Conclusion
- before Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer wrote a 9,000 word article titled death of an innocent for the 1993 issue of outside, an active-lifestyle and adventure-travel magazine .
- the article received both positive and negative reactions.
- One review being "the idealism that prompted this fatal romantic adventure appears both flawed and badly articulated...and cliched affirmations that writers like Tolstoy, Thoreau and Jack London were leading him on." Taking Risk to Its 'Logical' Extreme, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt The New York Times.
- the negative reviews led to Krakauer deciding to take a non-linear narrative rather than traditional.
- the narrative focuses on Chris' journey, not his death.
- Krakauer's purpose was to force the reader to face Chris as a character and see him as more than kid rebelling against his parents.
- the reader cannot judge Chris based upon his death and can only see his life.
By beginning with Chris' death and building Chris' character from there, the reader cannot help but feel connected to Chris in some way. As the book progresses, so does the reader's attachment to Chris. As the author moves from Chris' childhood to his friends to his journey, layers of Chris' character are being added. By using a non-linear narrative the author makes it virtually impossible to see McCandless as a one dimensional character. In the end, after we have seen all the parts of Chris that we can see, Krakauer lets the reader decide if Chris was on to something or if he was just a kid rebelling against his parents.
"Don't settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon. You are still going to live a long time, Ron, and it would be a shame if you did not take the opportunity to revolutionize your life and move into an entirely new realm of experience."Jon Krakauer
EX: The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brein
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