Arctic Dreams Barry Lopez

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer tells the story of a young traveler who ventures to Alaska in hopes of testing his abilities. There, he ultimately starves to death due to his unpreparedness. Chris McCandless was reckless and unready, and it cost him his life. He made dumb mistakes but altogether, he was a courageous young man who deserves to be praised for his bravery.

He used endless personal experience to build a solid survival story that still interests kids to this day. It is an accurate and well thought out, if short, novel. The whole thing circles around Canadian Geography and the ways it can affect how you live, and even if you live. The protagonist, Brian, forms a strong attachment to the wilderness that he is stranded in, and is reluctant to leave when finally rescued. His sense of place and identity totally changes in the time he is there, turning him from a city child to a strong and intelligent survivalist.

Carter stresses that this is a truly amazing piece of land with many aspects that make it worthwhile to leave it undisturbed. Starting off strong, Carter begins: “The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge stands alone as America’s last truly great wilderness.” Right away, Carter establishes rapport with the audience by describing the refuge as an alluring and unique wilderness. By using such powerful wording, Carter is able to provoke inside the reader a feeling of awe, as if they had experienced the magnificence of the refuge for themselves. Carter then goes on to describe the refuge with phrases such as “a once-in-a-lifetime wildlife spectacle” and “magnificent area as vast as it is wild”.

Furthermore, Carter mentions that “there are few places on earth as wild and fierce as the Arctic Refuge” to prove to the audience that the refuge is distinctive, rare, and does not

“‘This is the last you will hear from me…I now walk into the wild’” (Krauker, 69) Jon Krauker’s suspenseful novel, Into the Wild, gives an intricate insight into the life and death of Chris McCandless. He knows this trip could be fatal, but he does it anyway, ignoring the fact that his parents and family still cared about him. He was being ignorant toward the people who warned him about going into Alaska on his own and toward his family.

Hunger of Memory is a memoir of the educational experience of Richard Rodriguez and his journey as a first generation Mexican- American citizen. The book is compiled of a prologue, in which he states his reasons for writing, and six chapters with no specific chronological order. Richard Rodriguez grew up in a white, middle-class neighborhood and attended a Catholic school. He describes his early childhood as a war between his “public” and “private life”: a war between school and home. He struggled when he first started school, because English was his second language and he felt insecure about his shaky ability to communicate through it.

Along his journey, he was struck by many life altering decisions that has shaped him into the person he is today. Few people find it easy to discuss and write about the difficult topics Green brings to life in his novels, Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, Paper Towns, The Fault in our Stars, and many more. Many teens and adults find his books to be inspirational in the way they go about solving life’s struggles. Most of his novels have been produced into movies, making him more well known as well as being twitter famous and creating educational YouTube vlogs. Green is a very well known author of this time period and has made a big impact with his writing videos, and movies.

Chris went off after he graduated college and “lived off the land”. Chris would travel to the coast of Mexico, the plains of Kansas, and the dunes of Nevada. Chris went on a final expedition to Alaska that cost him everything. In the following paragraphs I will fully detail how Chris was reckless, selfish, and naive. I will also explore how Chris tied his life to the beliefs of transcendentalism.

His journal also holds words of disappointment in his last days. He speaks of his desperate and progressively futile efforts to survive. His journal entries were also published. The new York times published his journal entries which lead to his story being published by Jon KrakAuer. Both men’s journals are the only evidence of their dream being pursued in the wilderness of

The Alaskan Bush is one of the hardest places to survive without any assistance, supplies, skills, and little food. Jon Krakauer explains in his biography, Into The Wild, how Christopher McCandless ventured into the Alaskan Bush and ultimately perished due to lack of preparation and hubris. McCandless was an intelligent young man who made a few mistakes but overall Krakauer believed that McCandless was not an ignorant adrenalin junkie who had no respect for the land. Krakauer chose to write this biography because he too had the strong desire to discover and explore as he also ventured into the Alaskan Bush when he was a young man, but he survived unlike McCandless. Krakauer’s argument was convincing because he gives credible evidence that McCandless was not foolish like many critics say he was.

Christopher McCandless, whose life and journey are the main ideas of the novel “Into the Wild”, was about an adolescent who, upon graduating from Emory College, decided to journey off into the Alaskan wilderness. He had given away his savings of $25,000 and changed his name to Alex Supertramp. His voyage to Alaska took him two years during which he traveled all across the country doing anomalous jobs and making friends. He inevitably made it to Alaska were he entered the wilderness with little more than a few books, a sleeping bag and a ten pound bag of rice. A couple months after his first day in the wild, his body was found in an abandoned bus.

Christopher McCandless, a 29-year-old dreamer, went on the journey of a lifetime to involve himself with nature and being truly independent. He had lived a life of privilege, made amazing grades in school, and even went to school at Emory College, getting degrees in both history and anthropology. Even though he seemed to have everything good going for him, it’s not the life he wanted. McCandless decides after law school to go deep into the “wild”, with no map, no resources. All he kept was a small journal and camera in which he captured and recorded all of his experiences in, allowing people for the rest of time to read and learn about his journey in his book titled Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer.

In the excerpt the mooallem explains a northern military fort that was known as “the polar bear capital of the world”. with its newfound title came tourists. And with the uprising in tourism comes with the rise in destruction. The author makes a very strong and and almost emotional connection not only to himself but the the polar bears

George Saunders has written several short stories; however, he has only two stories that have somewhat of the same context. “The Red Bow” and “Adams” were written after the tragedy of 9/11 and was about how the United States invaded Iraq. “The Red Bow” was published on the Esquire on August 20, 2009 and “Adams” was published in The New Yorker on August 9, 2004. With Saunders’ biography in writing these two stories fit right in, with their context, and with his thinking of the United States involvement in the world. George Saunders did not start his career as a writer of literature; as a result, he wanted to study the world of engineering.

N. Scott Momaday is a Kiowa novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He devotes his life to protect and inherit the national culture heritage, and has published a large number of Indian literature with fresh content, unique style and light homesickness. Among his numerous literary works, the early published work The Way to Rainy Mountain belongs to a prose with beautiful style of writing and sincere affection. The way to Rainy Mountain is a Momaday’s journey to seek his root. He skillfully combines the life of his grandmother and the history of the people together, with a unique perspective, rich poetic language, delicate emotions to show readers the origin, development and decline of the culture of Indian 's Kiowa people.