Author: habdull1

http://www.flickr.com/photos/74269517@N00/131514681/

Uploaded on April 19, 2006

by Lucidragon

…”He seemed mad at us more often, and he became more withdrawn–no, that’s not the right word. Chris wasn’t ever withdrawn. But he wouldn’t tell us what was on his mind and spent more time by himself.”

 I chose this picture of a family without their son and only a picture of him to signify his being a part of the family, because it made me think of how Chris McCandless’s phsycial presence in his family dwindled in the last few years of his life. All that Chris’s family really had left of him in the end were pictures and memories and a deep void that can never be filled. I chose this particular caption because it almost seems contradictory. As if his mother, Billie, is in denial about his being withdrawn. I wonder what othe word she would have used to describe his behavior. McCandless’s family were waiting for some word from their son, and the impact that his actions and subsequent death had on them was ofcourse devastating. The fact that all the people in the picture are looking towards the photograph of their son/brother drove that thought home for me.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobby8/23615401/

Uploaded on July 4, 2005

by Bobby8

“Although the tone of the journal–written in the third person in a stilted, self-consciouness voice–often veers toward melodrama, the available evidence indicates that McCandless did not misrepresent the facts;telling the truth was a credo he took seriously.”

 The picture is actually of a flower closely related to the A. californica that is mentioned by Kraukauer in the chapter when Chris abandons his Datsun. When I first read the beginning of Chapter 4 when the flower is mentioned, and how it is extremely rare and only grows in a secluded part of the Mojave Desert, my first thought was that the flower in it’s rarety, was being compared to McCandless. In reference to the caption from the book, these qualities of always telling the truth and wanting to help the less fortunate, are rare traits to find in people, and to such an intensity.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/siberian_kiss/95996819/

Uploaded on February 5, 2006

by brojangles4

“I feel uncomfortable, as if I were intruding, a voyeur who has slipped into McCandless’s bedroom while he is momentarily away.”

This picture of the inside of an abandoned bus, and from the view of the person looking in, seemed to fit the caption from the book.  I can understand the unnerving feeling of being in the bus and seeing the relics from McCandless’s stay there. I imagine the feeling of when I was in elementary school and we’d go on field trips to historical sites, and I’d get this odd sensation when I would ponder that fact that such and such person was standing where I am standing. I know it is not the quite the same thing for Krakauer.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaymusings/52792567/

Uploaded on October 15, 2005

by Janenancy36

“But I believe we were similarly affected by the skewed relationships we had withour fathers.”

The picture of a father and son walking on a trail into the forest, hand in hand, was ironic because as the caption states, Krakauer draws a parallel between he and Chris’s strain relationship with their fathers. The father in the picture is holding the son’s hand, and slightly leading him off the trail. In relation to Into the Wild, I interpeted this as McCandless’s and/or Krakauer’s father trying to lead them off the path of what they want to do, and steer them towards what they deem is best for their sons. However, their sons are intent on sticking to their own wants and ambitions.

 

Synthesis:

 The impact that captions have on an image and vice versa is that they give an added piece of information that provokes the imagination and allows more questions or insights to be gained into whatever the picture and caption are about. There are so many ways to pair an image and caption and thereby manipulate or deepen the meaning of the caption. For example, the first image I chose with the family and the caption about Chris becoming more isolated from his family, the image itself is not of a family who lost a son, but actually it was a submission for a competition for the show the Amazing Race! But, when I pair the image with the caption, it takes on a different tone, although the back story is one that is comical. I guess an example of my quoting the story out-of-context, is the image with the flower and the caption about Chris’s journal. It shows how you can gain insight or make connections between two things that are separate within the story, but when put together, make sense.

 

Relationships in “The Dead”- I may be wrong, but has anyone noticed that the only married couple in the story that is present, are Gabriel and Gretta? It may be reading too much into it, but I’m thinking there is some significance in that, but I can’t think of any right now. I feel a lot of empathy for Aunt Julia, especially after seeing the film clips. Its like, all these women seem to have is hanging onto the false praises–its like their lives are so empty.  Snow in “The Dead”- I noticed that snow has some significance in the story. In the musical, (I think it was Gretta, but I could be wrong), looks out the window and says, “There’s something so…forgiving about snow.” My guess would be that the snow represents in itself, purity, beauty, covering all things-so that even the most unsightly thing, or flaw, is covered in whiteness. Was the snow supposed to be “forgiving” for Gretta, because of what happened to Michael Furey?

 I think this poem is about struggling with death, loss and the inability to relinquish control over the finite nature of our lives. There is an urgency in the poem to “not go gentle that good night” which here I think means the darkness of the unknown(beyond the physical world). Somehow, in “raging” or in making that last-stand before the defeat, it seems more dignified than just letting go.

 There are parts in the poem that I found some difficulty understanding; for example, in stanza 4, line 13-14 “Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight/Blind eyes could blaze like the meteors and be gay/Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Also, how much should we, as the reader, let the fact that Thomas’s father was dying as at the time he wrote this poem? Can we say that the speaker and the poet are the same voice?