Author: abradbur

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pierrefrancoise/127579972/

“It was like he was off in his own universe” – Lori Zarza of Chris McCandless as a McDonalds employee, pg 40.

 

This picture is of a young man standing in an open area which looks similar to a baseball field.  Although he is surrounded by characteristics of city life – high fences, trucks, buildings, dirt – he is also surrounded by a halo of sunlight which seem to separate him from the dark shade which bathes the rest of the city.  This man in his own world of light reminded me of Chris.  Not only has he turned his back on those who had authority over him, like the man in the picture has turned his back on the person who is taking the picture, but Chris is forcing himself to escape the reality of his past life in order to discover a universe of his own in which he can live off naturally.  It is interesting that although the man in the picture is standing in a circle of light that separates him from the darkness of the world around him, he is still, nonetheless, within the boundaries of that world which surrounds him.  Similarly, Chris is seeking to escape from the world’s boundaries, authorities, and legalities, yet he cannot seem to rid himself of marks of civilization.  All along his journey he is “saved” by people that he keeps running into, and ultimately, his refuge is in a bus that was put in the wilderness for hunters.

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“We were always trying to pull him back from the edge.” – Walt McCandless thinking about their hike as a family in Rocky Mtn National Park

 

The original caption of this father and son picture points out the mosquitoes that are circling their heads, as well as a missing digit on the father’s pinky which he lost to frostbite on Mount St. Elias.  What I find intriguing about the juxtaposition of this quote of Chris’s father with the endearing picture of the adventurous father and son is that Walt would only take Chris so far.  He would go so far as to take him on a hike, but then would not allow him to go to the top because it was too dangerous.  The complete opposite is seen the picture of the father, who went so far as to lose part of his finger while braving the cold, dangerous slopes of Mount St. Elias.  The closeness and companionship of the father and his son in the picture stands in direct contrast to the relationship between Walt and Chris:  Walt was holding Chris back from experiencing the dangers of living on the edge while the other father embraced them and even took his son with him to oppose such strong forces of nature.

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“…ascents of remote mountains in Alaska…obscure spires, steep and frightening…The danger bathed the world in a halogen glow that caused everything – the sweep of the rock, the orange and yellow lichens, the texture of the clouds – to stand out in brilliant relief.” – Jon Krakauer on his fantasizing about climbing through Alaskan/Canadian mountains

 

This picture of Denali National Park in September seems to be perfectly described by Krakauer’s quote.  In fact, the close resemblance between the picture and the quote almost validate his authority as the narrator.  He has been to the same area as McCandless, has the images of the dangerous, obscure slopes and the bright blankets of lichen embedded in his head, and he declares that he cannot seem stop fantasizing about this wilderness.  The beauty of this picture caught me by surprise; I was expecting something so icy looking and frozen over that there would be no room for beauty but now I can almost empathize with both Krakauer and McCandless’s desire to get lost in such a beautiful and powerful landscape.

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“They were drawn across the storm-racked ocean, drawn west past the edge of the known world…reading of these monks, one is moved by their courage, their reckless innocence, and the urgency of their desire.” – Jon Krakauer relating the bravery of monks to the adventurous spirit of Ruess and McCandless

 

In a ridiculous attempt to glorify the spirit of adventure and bravery within Ruess and McCandless and displaying their pursuit as that of other prominent religious and spiritual beings, Krakauer stretches the reader to compare the two wilderness explorers to monks.  After detailing the travels of the monks as they rowed off westward toward Greenland to discover themselves in nature and religious freedom, Krakauer decides that all his readers “cannot help but think” of the daring, enlightened journeys of Ruess and McCandless.  Interestingly enough, this picture shows a group of monks sitting on a pier, relaxing and sipping on cups of coffee, totally immersed in the normality of everyday urban life.  One can even see a few men in business suits in the background.  So in a sense, this picture shows a couple ironies.  The first irony relates to Krakauer’s portrayal of McCandless as a monk.  McCandless did not go out into the wilderness to receive a sense of personal enlightenment and quietude but rather to escape from the pressing matters of life and to discover if he could survive without dependence on other human beings.  The second irony refers to Krakauer’s account of the journey of the monks as they were purposefully placing themselves in dangerous, volatile circumstances, exploring the unknown.  But this picture shows a handful of them relaxing and drinking coffee together, one of the most peaceful and conventional things to do.

 

In working on this project, I tried to not take these captions out of context.  However, when searching for a specific word or phrase, I found myself easily skipping over previous sections and entire other parts of sentences which might have refuted or supported the part that I chose as my caption.  In a way, this is what Krakauer was did in writing Into the Wild.  He probably had all of his facts, quotes, evidence, stories, and stories laid out in front of him and it was his job to piece all of it together and to reconstruct the story of Chris McCandless, adventurer, wilderness man, supertramp.  By identifying pictures with these quotes, the reader is forced into adopting my perspective on these pictures, simply because I leave them with no other option.  It is this same authority that Krakauer is subject to in recreating Chris’s story, and although it is a difficult task to recreate the last few years of a person’s life, Krakauer is inherently entrusted with the power to twist, reword, create and compose Chris’s mysterious and intriguing journey into the wilderness. 

 

Regarding the discussion that we had in class today dealing with story telling and whether or not a person has the authority to put an evocative analysis on another individual’s story, I could not help but to think of Jon Krakauer’s twist on McCandless’s travels in “Into the Wild”.  Interestingly, in order for us to fully analyze the story of Chris McCandless, we as the readers must believe that Krakauer is a reliable source.  Although he is a well-known author – “Into the Wild” became a national best seller! – I never thought to question whether or not we can believe that Krakauer’s account of McCandless’ wanderings and eventual death is complete truth.  As human beings we cannot help but put our own twist on stories we hear, simply because we have perspectives, imaginations and a mind that enables us to see every situation slightly different from another person.  When we were sharing our own stories as a class, I could not help but wonder how different each person’s version of even one of the stories would be, had we continued to pass it on and tell it to someone else.  Without a doubt there would be some discrepancy regarding the people involved, the chronology, or details in the setting that we would forget or even add in, depending on our experiences.  Krakauer then, probably cannot help but to add in his own story in juxtapostion with McCandless’ own story and it is probably for the better that he brings in his own separate experience.  By mentioning his own story separately, but within the story of McCandless, Krakauer is able to distinguish between the two distinct tales and therefore not confuse the details of McCandless’ story with his own.  This in turn makes Krakauer a more reliable story teller and the reader can enjoy “Into the Wild” without constantly wondering if what the author says happened is fact.

Before our class period this afternoon, I believed that the wife of “The Yellow Wall Paper” was insane from the moment the reader is introduced to her.  Not only does she write in a kind of scattered way, but her obsession with the room she was living in, as well as her hallucinations about people, objects, and colors on her wall made me think something was seriously wrong with her.  However, after our discussion today, I realized that perhaps she was almost forced into insanity because she was treated as if she already was insane, which is exactly what I was doing to her as a reader.  

It seems to me that such simple issues, even like the one that this woman had – a “temporary nervous depression” is what she calls it –  can be blown out of proportion to such extremes that the individual that might suffer from such an issue begins to believe that their case is way more serious than it actually is.  To be honest with oneself about a problem, habit, or attitude is beneficial and is probably a step in the right direction towards solving such a minute problem.  However, to give a clinical name to something as common as a tendency in attitude or mood, or a reoccuring situation that makes one feel more depressed, or a naturally human habit such as a lack of paying full attention is to further the degree of seriousness regarding that common habit.  Furthermore, the person who “suffers” from something like this then believes that something is actually completely wrong with them physically and mentaly and they soon come to believe that in order to “cure” this they must see a doctor, have a prescription, maybe even visit a psychologist just to get rid of this problem.  Had they not known that their simple attitude was such big deal, they might not have needed to see any specialist or start taking drugs at all; but, now that they believe this is the only thing that will heal them, they become dependent on whatever methods are given them. 

I believe that this is what happened with the woman in the story.  She might have had, as was mentioned, slight depression after giving birth, which is not uncommon to women considering all of the detailed processes and hormones that are in them from being pregnant for so long.  It was when John decided that she needed to rest, to not work, to be shut up in order to fully be healed that her condition worsened.  Not only did he start treating her as a mental patient – calling her “little girl”, reading to her, not letting her go anywhere, not allowing her to write – but she started acting in response to this, as if she really did have a mental problem.  As was mentioned, the fact that she asks herself whether she really is crazy proves that she in fact was not. 

This story proves then, the danger in labeling people and their behavior as if they were somehow ill mentally or physically.  I have no real background on mental and behavior disorders and I know that there are actual cases of people who really do need help because of their behavioral tendencies.  However, I do see a danger in our society of automatically labeling people as clinical cases because it seems to defeat the hope of them getting over the thing that is causing their behavior to continue in this manner.