I believe Krakauer's storytelling his helping the reader understand Chris's purpose for going into the wild. For me, it gave me a better understanding of how all these people went on their own adventures and failed. Why did they fail? Because our society is not fit to live in the wild with minimal equipment and food. On page 75 Gene Rosellini wrote a letter to a friend stating, "I learned that it is not possible for human beings as we know them to live off the land." Rosellini wanted to become a Stone Age native, but near the end of his journey he experienced the physical, mental, and emotional reality of living in the wild. Sure, it may be possible for some people to live in the wild and survive, but we don't hear about those kind of people. We hear about the people who fail and are found dead in the wild. Rosellini accepted this failure and acknowledge it. I believe this helps Krakauer's story because he is continuously explaining how people go out there to see if they can go live in the wild and conquer an amazing dream of theirs. For me, these stories are prime examples of how McCandless continuously made mistakes along his journey to conquer his dream. All of these stories happened before McCandless left for his adventure, but McCandless was too cocky and thought he could do everything by himself and overcome nature.
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I don't think its fair to say that McCandless was cocky. He was very stubborn in that he didn't want anyone's help, but I think he wanted to have an entirely individualistic journey. Also I think that McCandless knew very well, especially from the Rosellini story, that he might die. Like I said in Matt's post though, he was willing to die in order to have an incandescent experience.
ReplyDeletei also don't think that McCandless was cocky. He was a very independent and smart man. he was too smart for his own good. i am pretty sure that Rosellini ended up killing himself in his cabin. he realized that he couldn't fulfill his dream so he killed himself. i think that putting the story about Gene just shows which way Krakuer is leaning toward. the example you used makes Krakuer seem like he leans toward McCandless being an idiot.
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