He knew there was a chance he could die, but he didn't think it would really happen to him.
The book Chris bought that told about wild plants he could eat didn't say anything about the wild potato seeds being poison. Chris had been eating fairly well up to that point. He hunted everyday and wrote down the small animals he shot and cooked for food. He picked berries and other plants he found in the woods to eat. He had been eating wild potatoes for several weeks, but towards the end of summer the roots of wild potatoes get tough and stringy. They probably didn't taste good anymore. He was hungry. He had a large stash of seeds and pods, more than enough to plant, and so he decided to eat them. It wasn't much different from eating sunflower seeds. He had no idea they were poison! How could he know? And it made sense to think they were edible since the rest of the plant was edible.
Chris didn't die from an "extreme" act. It was a mistake. Of course, he wouldn't have died if he hadn't tried to live alone in the wilderness. Like mountain climbers wouldn't freeze to death or fall or get caught in an avalanche if they hadn't chosen to climb the mountain in the first place. Soldiers wouldn't get killed in Iraq if they hadn't decided to go in the military. The point is that Chris McCandless could not be happy until he lived out his dream of a journey into Alaska. He refused to see the risk. "He didn't think the odds applied to him. We were always trying to pull him back from the edge" his father said (p. 109). Chris's friend Andy Horowitz said Chris always wanted more of life and was never satisfied. He was curious and hungry for experiences. Andy said, "He was looking for more adventure and freedom than today's society gives people" (p. 174). Chris's dream was for adventure. He wanted to be free, live off the land, and be completely self-reliant.
Living extremely was a spiritual quest. Christ saw his time alone in the wilderness as a way to grow spiritually, to find himself, and know what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. He read books by people like Emerson and Thoreau and took them very seriously. He read them over and underlined them and made notes in the margins. It was like he had a cause he believed in, and he wanted to be obedient to it. For example, he took as little as possible with him into the bush and refused to fly to Alaska because he thought that would be cheating. He wanted to do everything right so he could...
Krakauer believes it was mere luck that he survived and Chris did not. However, McCandless was offered many opportunities to save his own life, all of which he rejected. It was deliberation, not chance that took his life. Chris was so clearly headed on a path to destruction, when he was found, his identity was almost immediately obvious to those who had met him: "The police don't know who
A girlfriend, or even a close friend, might balk at living on rice and wandering in the wild for months. Although Krakauer rejects McCandless' refusal of all aid as a form of suicide, it seems justifiable in interpreting McCandless' determination to push aside all attempts to make his journey safer as a kind of unconscious misanthropy, or hatred of humanity. Having people care about him would have meant that he
I prefer lying down on my back, with my feet flat on the ground and my knees up in the air, although I have done the same basic technique sitting up as well. I close my eyes and consciously relax every part of my body, starting with my toes and working my way up, through the legs, hips, torso, arms, neck and even face. At the same time, I
McCandless Journey Hero McCandless' Journey to Discovery and Heroic-Sanctity In Into the Wild, Chris McCandless embarks on several different movements -- wandering, questing, the pilgrimage, the going-forth. At times, he seems to have a goal, and at other times he appears to have none. Therefore, it is difficult to define Chris as a traditional hero of the monomyth. The major flaw in doing so is to miss the reality of Chris's "journey"
In fact, the exercise of liberty is oftentimes one of the principle producers of unhappiness. People tend to relish and utilize their freed will by thinking doing so will make them feel felicitous. On the contrary, many times free will can actually account for scenarios that are counterproductive to happiness, which is why Gilbert writes "We have no trouble anticipating the advantages that freedom may provide, but we seem blind
Eat, Pray, Love Into the Wild Motorcycle Diaries Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail Theories/ Frameworks Representation from Media Studies -- Culture and its Relevance Post Modernism Literature Thematic Analysis Importance of Culture in Analysis Theory and Methodology Thematic Analysis -- Framework Thematic analysis is appropriate for the following situations Detective and inductive approaches Analysis of two different phased of data Thematic Process Analysis and Process of Comparing Literary Works of Post-Modern Period Post Modernism Writers Post Modern Literary Theory A person's personal, work,
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