"We can at least try to understand our own motives, passions, and prejudices, so as to be conscious of what we are doing when we appeal to those of others. This is very difficult, because our own prejudice and emotional bias always seems to us so rational." - T. S. Eliot Personal bias is a strong motivator, whether we are aware of it or not. It can change the way we view a situation or event, just because of what we choose to pay attention to. For example, an ex-athlete may retell a story of them in their "glory days" and decide to make it more dramatic than the real situation by adding or leaving out possible story-altering details just to get a more positive reaction out of those who are being told the story. Similarly, Krakauer dramatizes …show more content…
In chapters 14 and 15, Krakauer embarks on multiple solo journeys in harsh climates. To get his audience to believe what he experienced, Krakauer attempts to immerse the reader using devices such as simile, repetition, and metaphor. In chapter 14, Krakauer embarks on his adventure in the Devil’s Thumb. As he walked through the snow, he uses a simile: "Staggering slowly up the glacier beneath my overloaded pack, bearing this ridiculous metal cross, I felt like an odd sort of penitente" (138). Here, Krakauer was struggling to carry all the gear that he had brought with him and compared himself to a "penitente," which is a Spanish-American religion that practices self-whipping and penitential torture. This comparison illustrates Krakauer in a light that readers will likely associate with Jesus carrying his own cross prior to his crucifixion and metaphorically raises Krakauer on a higher pedestal. Additionally, Krakauer’s use of repetition sheds a similar light on him. As he scaled the Devil’s Thumb, "I’d fallen into a slow, hypnotic rhythm—swing, swing; kick, kick; swing, swing; kick, kick—when my left ice ax slammed into a slab of diorite a few inches beneath the rime" (143). Here, Krakauer demonstrates how monotonous the practice of climbing is and how effortless it is to get lost in the rhythm, making sudden issues more perilous than necessary if he had been on alert throughout the climb. The sudden change in pace is a surprise to the reader, even in the text, where suspense is progressively built. This sticky situation demonstrates Krakauer’s character and shows his resilience in dire situations. And in chapter 15, as Krakauer describes his ailing father, "His eyes were wild. Flashing in defiance one moment, in uncomprehending terror the next, they rolled far back in their sockets, giving a clear and chilling
Krakauer’s investigation then picks up a replacement subject: McCandless’s frustration together with his family. once McCandless graduated from highschool, he went on a visit to CA and discovered that his father had been a spouse. Krakauer theorizes that McCandless’s anger at this long-kept family secret offers some motivation for his need to go away his life behind. Krakauer then dedicates 2 chapters to his own ascent of the Devils Thumb.
Jon Krakauer’s fascination in a young man’s life turns out to be more than an article of the boy’s adventure and the journey he set out for himself. Krakauer reflects on much larger subjects within the book based on his path while trying to understand Chris McCandless. Chris McCandless, a young man from an East Coast family, abandons everything set for him in his path. Donating twenty-four-thousand-dollar savings account to charity, burning the cash he had, leaving his car and possessions behind were all decisions Chris thought were right for him. His confident yet riskful choices led him to an independent life in the wild.
Did McCandless find what he wanted to seek in the wilderness before he died? Krakauer recognizes his own particular fixation in the presentation, and his creating of the story brings up its
I disappointed my father in the usual ways. Like McCandless, male figures of authority aroused in me a confusing medley of corked fury and a hunger to please. [...] If something captured my undisciplined imagination, I pursued it with a zeal bordering on obsession” (Krakauer 134). To Krakauer, Chris McCandless was a personality he held close to him, felt a connection with. Therefore, the romantic, idealized concept of McCandless is what Krakauer became enamoured with, not the story of inept almost-but-not-quite survival.
The story of Chris McCandless may be illustrated as exhibiting an empathetic tone. Meaning Krakauer had the aptitude to comprehend and share the emotions or even beliefs of another or in this instance Chris McCandless. Throughout the book, Krakauer creates frequent and several connections between himself and McCandless, while dismissing antagonistic criticism directed towards McCandless. On Page 155 for instance, Krakauer compares McCandless with himself at that age, justifying much of his and Chris’s behavior on their adolescence and recklessness. Krakauer states that as a young man, he possessed an analogous distancing from his father, a “similar intensity and heedlessness”, and believed that the intentions of McCandless’s journey, similar
Later, Krakauer goes on to describe that he lacked McCandless’s intellect and ‘lofty ideals’ but shared ‘intensity’,’heedlessness’, and “a similar agitation of the soul” (Krakauer
Later I unrolled my sleeping bag on her floor. Long after she fell asleep, I lay awake in the next room, listening to her peaceful exhalations. I had convinced myself for many months that I didn’t really mind the absence of intimacy in my life, the lack of real human connection, but the pleasure i’d felt in this woman’s company-the ring of her laughter, the innocent touch of a hand on my arm-exposed my self-deceit and left me hollow and aching. (Krakauer 137). This led to the connection that McCandless, just like Krakauer, had some days of sorrow and loneliness.
Zoe Engel 6-19-23 Mr. Selfridge Period: 2 Stepping Into the Wilderness The work of nonfiction Into The Wild, by Jon Krakauer, tells the true story of Chris McCandless, an adventurous young man, who leaves home to travel around the continent eventually setting foot into the Alaskan wilderness on a journey that becomes fatal. Highlighted throughout this work of nonfiction is the true story of McCandless’s life, along with bits of Krakauer’s personal life as it relates to McCandless’s. Each chapter begins with at least one epigraph that shares common themes with the following chapter. The focus in this paper will be on chapter 14, “The Stikine Ice Cap,” in which Krakauer shares his experience climbing the Devil’s Thumb in Alaska, and the second
Krakauer then uses this to his advantage in order to portray just how joyous an individual can feel when immersed in the expansive
In chapters 14 and 15, John Krakauer attempts to prove that Chris McCandless did not die because he was suicidal, but rather he died because of an accident and his stubborn personality, by telling Krakauer’s own personal story to make connections to Chris so that the readers can trust him with his judgements about Chris and they can have a better understanding of Chris’s characteristics. The author starts chapter 14 by inserting his personal life experience as a young man to make connections to Chris and to show the readers their similarities so that they can rely on his judgement. Just like Chris, Krakauer was a stubborn, determined, a loner, and an outdoorsman. As a young man, Krakauer was a risk taker.
Jon Krakauer's writings about the young man Chris McCandless show how Chris was overconfident in his ability to survive the harsh nature of Alaska. Krakauer uses imagery of the wild Alaskan wilderness to contradict Chris’s ability to survive. Krakauer’s description of the wilderness shows McCandless ’s unpreparedness to outlast this fierce biome. Along with imagery, Krakauer uses irony to express a man vs. nature theme.
To answer Bertrand Russell's implied question, no person can write an interesting story about history without bias. When readers or people get excited about a story, there has to be a slight bias, positive or negative, when writing about true events to keep people questioning and responsive enough to continue reading. Some authors will have an obvious inclination toward characters to catch people's attention and see if the readers can recognize instances where a personal opinion is being used, which may inspire people to want to` pursue a story. An author's goal is to get the reader's attention and keep it; using bias is one way to do that. As seen in Jon Krakauer's story Into the Wild, there’s a positive bias toward protagonist Chris McCandless.
For example, Krakauer employs Ron Franz’s account of Chris and mentions how Franz “regards the world through wary blue eyes” because of Chris’ death (59). Franz’s account evokes emotion to demonstrate the indelible impression Chris has on those he meets. Krakauer loads his story with emotion to allow the readers to sympathize with Chris’ plight; thus, Krakauer’s emotions influence his writing which prevents his ability to remain objective. Moreover, the author recalls the “wrenching loneliness” of his own journey with the Devil’s Thumb in Alaska (151). Krakauer recounts the hardships of his journey to indicate Chris’ emotional state during his journey.
The revelation that he was merely human, and frightfully, so beyond my power to forgive (148 Krakauer ).” And how McCandless could not accept how his father wanted to used money to get Chris to be someone that he is not or control him. Another example for the distaste towards authority, “Like McCandless, figures of male authority aroused in me a confusing medley of cork fury and a hunger to please... If something captured undisciplined imagination, I pursued it with a zeal bordering on a obsession, and from the age of 17 until my late twenties... (134 Krakauer
Everybody has unconscious bias. But what role does it play in our daily lives? And how does it affect us? In the TED talk “What Does My Headscarf Mean to You”, speaker Yassmin Abdel-Magied aims to encourage the audience to acknowledge that everyone has unconscious bias, and to look past their own bias in order to promote equal opportunity, particularly when it comes to the workplace. “We all have our own biases.