Into the Wild and Into Thin Air
Many classic accounts regarding "man against nature" adventures likenthese adventures to conquest. A mountain, for example, is a force to bemastered or conquered. Reaching the summit is akin to a victory over themountain. People who forge trails into the wilderness refer to "taming"the wilds. Through these terms, nature is presented as entirely subjectto human will, as targets to be assaulted and subdued. For Jon Krakauer, however, nature is itself is possesses an archetypalpower. Whether mountains or wilderness, Krakauer writes of nature with animbued collective and spiritual energy. These places are physicalreminders of a transcendent world to which most humans aspire. This paper examines Krakauer's portrayal of nature in Into the Wildand Into Thin Air. The first part of this paper compares how the authorportrays nature as spiritual forces that attract seekers, not conquerors.The second part of the paper focuses on how nature asserts its owndominance in the face of human arrogance and human error. In theconclusion, the paper emphasizes Krakauer's argument, that nature is aforce, from which people could seek solace or strength. However, when
In the end, hedied of poisoning and starvation. Toremain alive, humans must know how to negotiate and balance these limits. These wordsare a very telling statement regarding Krakauer's own views of nature. His trek into the wild wasa search for meaning and identity. Worse,many of these corrupt values are also tainting the natural world, as seenin the paid "luxury" trips to make Everest "conquerable" to those who couldafford it. Interestingly, in Krakauer's account, Chris McCandless, while a tragicfigure, was certainly not akin to Captain Ahab. The author only hoped he would be able to gain knowledge from theexperience. " The closest spot hefound was Alaska. Instead, the young vagabond is guided by an earnestasceticism, one that is impossible to sustain in the crowded modern world,which is replete with distractions. In fact, Krakauer describes McCandlessas a young man "at peace, serene as a monk gone to God" (199). For the typical college graduate, personal fulfillment is measured interms of salary or job prestige. For McCandless, however, fulfillment wascontingent on nature and solitude. In contrast, while the sudden storm was a catalyst for the tragedy onEverest, the seeds of the events were planted weeks earlier. She was short-roped for five hours, a process that sapped muchof her Sherpa's strength.
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Acceptance Essays
