Author: cso1

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lesec/124673194/

 

“A year ago down in Mexico,” he told Gallien, “I was out on the ocean in a canoe, and I almost drowned when a storm came up.”
 

 

This picture of the canoe with two paddles inside reminds me of the abstractness of Chris McCandless’s journey down the Colorado River.  In his mind, this was a beautiful idea, and just like everything else Chris has done up until this point, this too was an impulsive move.  We do not know what Chris could’ve been thinking about when he decided that he was going to buy an aluminum thing and paddle it down a course which he was unfamiliar with.  If you look at the picture, you will see that the water is calm, unmoving, and unrealistic.  It is as though someone had painted this false picture, maybe this is what Chris did, painted a false picture.  We know that the journey wasn’t easy.  There is a color-divide in the picture, a line stretching across the waters shifting colors, almost looking as though a volcano had erupted and split over onto the water, it is anything but safe.  Yes Chris had managed to come out of this little adventure alive, but he ran into some obstacles that he was not prepared to undertake.  He ran into dead ends, he pushed his canoe through trees and mud, and experienced powerful currents (almost died he said), yet Chris still held onto the idea that he would find the sea; what was the grand purpose of it all? If it was not for an incredible amount of luck, and finding duck hunters who dropped him and his canoe in the Golfo de Santa Clara, Chris might not have made it as far as he did.  Maybe nature was already warning him that the path he is headed for was one he should not take.   Chris finally abandons the canoe at the southeast of El Golfo de Santa Clara; yet Chris learned nothing from this calamity.  Instead, Chris just cleaned the slate and started heading back North; maybe he was testing fate, and fate eventually pushed back.

 

 

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismoody1111/126585653/

 

“Chris” says Billie, “thought we were idiots for worrying about him.”
 

I would think that if I was in Chris’s shoes, stranded out in the middle of nowhere, where there is not a single person in sight, I would write more than a “disquieting note” that reads “S.O.S I need your help.  I am injured, near death…”  Maybe the parents weren’t idiots after all.  Their reasoning was justified and in the end, it is Chris whose motives we question ourselves about.  He is a person so full of self contradictory that even with all the information that we are given, a lot of things remain inconclusive.  He’s manage to not see that in a disquieting way, he’s been asking for help all along, and he’s received it from so many kind strangers; in the end, being alone killed him. That’s why I choose this picture.  The irony is: everyone saw that Chris needed help, except for Chris.  People tried to give him better equipment, food, shelter, friendship, and a home, which he refused.  In the letters he wrote to friends before his Alaskan journey, Chris hinted at the notion that that he might not make it out alive, giving his new friends closure if he should not make it back, but he didn’t provide the same courtesy for his family who was sickly worried about him. “If this adventure proves fatal and you don’t ever hear from me again…” “I now walk out to live amongst the wild” some people speculate that this was a suicide trip, but if it was a suicide trip, than why write an S.O.S letter?  Why not brave his death like great men of the wild usually do in fictional writing, why leave behind such a desperate plea for help.

 

 

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wildcountry/119976303/

 

“I didn’t have a watch, but in what seemed like a very short time, I was on the distinctive final ice field.  By now the entire sky was smeared with clouds.”
 

 

The picture is a picture of ice stretched over land, almost like what I envision Krakauer was describing in his mesmerizing state while still attempting to climb the Devils Thumb.  It is interesting how Krakauer relates himself to Chris McCandless.  He even states that he didn’t have a watch.  In between the many years since his climb, he still recalls that he did not have a watch on him; neither did Chris.  Was this something that all men who seek to conquer the wild must do before they walk forth into what is often called a dark abyss?  A point where time does not exist, therefore why should one have a watch? Maybe this was why Krakauer felt so connected to this kid; he sensed in Chris the same passion that drove him to risk his own life (once upon a time).  But in all actuality, Krakauer’s climb involved a lot of planning on his part.  He had a lot of resources that he had already planned on using, he even had a plane drop off food; there was no disillusionment. It was a temporary high for Krakauer, his intentions were pretty clear, he had a focus.  If we were to ask Chris what he planned to achieve out there, would there be a concise answer?  The way Krakauer described his adventure, and his continued passion for the wild, we sense that Krakauer supports the motivation behind Chris’s attempt.  By telling us his own story, Krakauer is coming to the defense of Chris’s actions, saying that he could’ve easily died, just as Chris had.  Still, the only thing his story showed me was that planning and experience has a lot to do with survival. 
 

 

     
 

 http://www.flickr.com/photos/21855797@N00/128565077/
 

“His struggle was to mold me in his image had been successful after all.  The old walrus in fact managed to instill in me a great and burning ambition; it had simply found expression in an unintended pursuit.”
 

I choose this picture because Krakauer had compared his climbing of The Devils Thumb to medical school without further explaining the similarities “He never understood that the Devil’s Thumb was the same as medical school, only different”.  He instead leaves it up to the readers to make a connection.  Just like medical school, climbing the devil’s thumb was an extremely difficult task which almost cost him his life. Kraukauer seem to believe that he and Chris was ironically molded into the person they are by their fathers.  Both fathers: “built a bridge of privilege for me (them), a hand-paved trestle to the good life, and I repaid him by chopping it down and crapping on the wreckage.” The only difference is Kraukauer had come to accept and be thankful for who he has become because of his father; Chris McCandless never forgave or moved pass the human flaws of his parents.  I wonder if Chris ever stopped for moments of self deflection and uncovered any hypocrisy in the way he lived and acted. 
 

 

 

 

My findings have so far been assumptions and questions; which has really lead me to uncover how I feel about this story and towards Chris McCandless.  Seeing the captions with a picture tagged to it, often cultivates an idea.  The picture allows you to summon thoughts that you can then link to the caption that are given.  If I just saw a picture of a doctor performing surgery, and it had no caption on it, I would not know where to start in deconstructing the picture.  Words can often form a picture in a readers mind; pictures on the other hand can influence and distort the words.  We see them and we automatically use them as a tool to decipher what we believe is really going on.  The captions serve as a clue to uncover what the picture is, or maybe it is the other way around.  The picture serves as a tool to uncover the meaning behind the words.  In either case, having both under the same roof is influential.  Take the picture of the canoe for example.  You read the caption and you look at the picture, and you don’t see an Ocean or a storm (maybe a river), so you look harder, try to summon a better idea at why this particular picture with this canoe was chosen, it is then that you see the subtle danger outlined by the abstractness of the photograph.  You wouldn’t concentrate so hard to find a relationship unless there was a caption there; you just accept that it’s a picture of a canoe.  Same applies to things taken out of context; you search for the meaning, try to connect the picture and the caption, if you still can’t find it…you dig deeper. 

I really like this poem by williams, I think it was written at a time (1989) where people were so unaware of the disease and they treated anyone who had it with such descrimination.  Just like the lines “Thinking of friends afraid to shake your hand”  And you’re so tired by the reaction it that you (the person who has aides) just don’t say anything back.  And the ones that really loves you “kissed you, partly to persuade both you and us” So even they were sort of afraid.  The tone of the poem is so informing.  And if you pay attention to the form, you see six stanza going something like this aba, cdc, efe, ghg, so on and so forth.  I loved how the first two lines are so profoundly stated “We did not know the first thing about how blood surrenders to even the smallest threat”  and then it moves from the unattached to the sorrowful bond, and losing someone you love and not knowing how to react towards a person dying of such disease.  “Stopping, though, to set our smiles at the door.  We didn’t know what look would hurt you least.

The Story of an Hour

 By Kate Chopin

 

 

I think this is probably one of the more thought provoking short stories for me.  She uses so much imagery that I was lost in it.  I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing, because sometimes I find myself not know what the heck it was that I just read, but then some lines are so beautiful that I found myself reading it twice to soak it in.  “When the storm of grief had spent itself”, one of my favorite lines, and I don’t know why, it’s simple and complex at the same time.  After my first read, I was a bit confused because I forgot the lady’s last name, and when Brently walked in the door, I had no idea what his relation to the woman was.  I also thought that she didn’t pass away, that she walked down the stairs with her sister.  It wasn’t until the very last line, that I realized that the woman was dead. 

Needless to say I went back for a second run.  The pieces started to make more sense.  It’s the story of an hour in which this lady, consumed by the news of her husband’s death, has no more reason to live, so her heart gave up and she died.  In that hour of death, she sees herself leaving her own body, so it’s like an out of body experience.  The irony to this story is that her husband didn’t die, that he was far from the scene of the accident, he made it home only to discover his dead wife.  I don’t know why, but for some reason, while reading this, I keep thinking the story is alluding to the subject of suicide.  I think because she’s telling her spirit to go free, to be free.  Then there’s the discussion she has with herself about not having no one to live for, and that no one has a right to force you to live (at least that is what I interpret the following sentence to mean).  To me it didn’t seem like she fought at all to stay alive, but rather she embraced the possession.  Thats just my take on it.