Author: JenniferR

In Sherry Simpson’s article about Chris McCandless, she is noncommittal about her stance on whether his trek was something noble or pathetic.  When she goes to the bus, she is disgusted at times about what people have written in the notebook – Kris even more so.  Why is this?  I thought about how Kris is an avid outdoorsman.  He is well prepared for everything, so when someone like Chris tries to do it on his own with a rifle and rice and fails, Kris will most likely scoff.  If Kris can’t do it unprepared, how can someone else?  What if Chris had made it out alive?  If Chris told Alaskan natives he survived for 100 days out in the wilderness, they would either not believe him or thought he was lucky.  Chris on the other hand, would not think he was lucky; he would think it was because of his strength and determiddnation.  To some degree, I think Sherry and Kris act so judgmental on Chris (Kris says “oh gag” after reading a passage in the notebook) is because they are jealous.  They are in denial that in fact they would love to go out in the wilderness and survive – if it were possible.  Chris proves to them that it isn’t.  But what about those who do survive?  There was a recent find of an Australian man that had been mugged and left in the desert for three months.  He ate lizards and frogs, and when people found him he looked like a living skeleteon. (http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-13519019,00.html)

This proves that some humans can be put to the extreme limit.  But this man didn’t ask to wander around in the desert nor wanted to find himself.  Maybe if Chris had come back to the real world again, he would have found meaning when he wasn’t looking for it. 

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1) “Alex,” says Gail Borah, “could really play.  I mean he was good.

The picture shows hands fervently playing the piano, causing the hands to be blurry.  I chose the caption first, because I thought that Chris playing the piano very well was a rare insight into another part of his personality.  It came to a complete surprise for me as a reader to read that he played very well and entertained for so long through his piano, and in another part of the book, through his voice.  Aside from jumping into the life of a hobo and drifter, I see a Chris who is educated and talented.  Considering his house on Willet Drive is literally less than a mile away from my house, it is hard to visualize anyone from these parts becoming a drifter.  I chose the picture because I thought it captured an atmosphere of a pianist being expressive through his music.  In the book Chris plays “honky-tonk country tunes, ragtime, and Tony Bennett numbers.”  So Chris probably had a classical education but actively pursued other musical interests.  This further provides insight on Chris, how he refused to go with the flow or follow anyone’s footsteps.

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2) Near the end of his trip, it turned out, Chris had gotten lost in the Mojave Desert and had nearly succumbed to dehydration.

This is a neat picture of water flowing from a regular water fountain into its drain.  The picture is ironic because a water fountain provides unlimited amounts of water for a thirsty soul who walks to it and presses a lever.  It would have been easy for Chris to be prepared or at least be helped by people or technology, but he didn’t and that is the irony between the caption and picture.  We find that Chris once had a near death experience in the Mojave Desert when he went on a road trip from home.  Instead of starvation though, he was dehydrated.  I saw this picture and I thought of technological society, and how it helps us live a better life.  Protective gear and nonperishable foods for example, would be a way that technology helps Chris, yet he always refused it unless it was shoved down his throat.  There are so many ways that people tried to help him, that this water from the water fountain could help him, but instead Chris wanted to walk away and find his lake so that no one would help him, that he would find some truth in his journey.  Dehydration apparently didn’t snap him out of trying to brave the elements out in the wilderness.

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3) “He’d figured out how to paddle a canoe down to Mexico, how to hop freight trains, how to score a bed at inner-city missions.  He’d figured all of that out on his own, and I felt sure he’d figure out Alaska, too.”

This is a picture of a freight train.  Coming out of Fairfax, Virginia Chris figured out how to be a hobo hopping trains.  I selected the caption because Jan Burres asks a question of if he can do all these things, he can figure out how to life in Alaska too.  Canoes, freight trains and beds are things in a technological world; living in the wilderness is on a completely different plane.  I chose the picture because it was simple the most stereotypical freight train I could find, something simple.  A freight train has boxes that someone has to get into and hide from cops.   How starkly different this is to surviving in the wilderness!  But Chris saw it all on one level, him against the world, whether it was freight trains or Alaska.  I am fairly certain that Chris never hopped freight trains before ever in his life.  Chris was out of place, mentally at least, from everyone else he was around.  It seems that Chris was so disgusted with mainstream American life that this was the abrupt change he needed to see something different in his country, something different and unknown to him previously

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4) A little more than a year after McCandless’s death he regards the world through wary blue eyes.

This is a picture of a young boy with big blue eyes.  I chose the caption first because I knew exactly what I wanted to find to juxtapose it with – energetic, young blue eyes.  When Franz hears about Chris’ death it is one of the most poignant parts of the book aside from when we hear Chris’ family.  I feel that Franz is jaded with time, with how life treats people unfairly at times, and how that has taken a toll on him.  On the other hand Chris (whose eyes I don’t remember being discussed in the book) sees life as a place to help people and find himself.  Although several times Chris accepts the possibility of his death, at one time breaking down, I do not feel he completely accepts it.  Chris might have been ready to suffer physically to the point of near death, but a 24-year old simply cannot cope with death that young.  His eyes are still young and hopeful, even in the picture he took at near death.

Summary

A photograph influences a caption by giving an impression of what that caption is supposed to associate with.  With the hands on the piano, I feel a rush of energy from the fingers to the piano. That energy stays in my head when I read the caption about Chris playing the piano very well.  In my mind it accentuates this energy I “read” from the photograph and carries it to my idea of Chris’ personality.  Chris could be sociable, energetic, and entertaining with friends he met, and the energy illuminates this aspect.  The caption frames a photograph by highlighting a distinguishing characteristic.  In my photo with the boy, there are several things one could dwell on, but the caption makes me put my attention into what the young eyes show me, and what they make me feel.  His skin, hair, or background does not matter to me anymore.  In this same way, Krakauer’s whole book is a caption of Chris’ life, giving us glimpses of his life through words and interviews.  We can simply be turned to different aspects of his life but we do not have the “picture” of Chris to scrutinize, and so I find myself trying to make a whole out of the pieces Krakauer gives us, which in itself is biased and ironic at times. When Into the Wild is quoted out of context, it misleads the reader to think that the author (may be it Joyce or London) to be of a certain thought.  When London describes the desolate wilderness, we see the “picture” of Chris one way, and when we read onward about how life still prevails, we see it another way.

It was hard for me to believe when Professor Yocom said that “sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive.”  Needing to have stories more than the food that sustains life in the first place?  I tried to think abstract about this, which is hard for me.  A story is a tidbit of life, a snapshot.  They are usually about someone, or something, living – or something personified as being living.  A story worth telling triggers emotions, related experiences, and most importantly: dreams.  Little girls hear the story Cinderella and think the world is a perfect place where the young working orphan ends up with a prince.  Guys will hear stories of warriors and soldiers and keep the dream alive that one day they may be just as strong in body and soul.  The more I think about it, it seems that living vicariously though characters in heroic, tragic stories will give a person hope and strength.  On the other hand, I would take food over Professor Yocom’s hook story.  The goal of that story, and many others in my opinion, is to entertain and elicit a reaction.  Whether it’s “aw how sweet” or “that was freaky as hell” they always make you think.  Why did this person do that, why this and that.  It questions them, but it also questions ourselves, what we would do in that situation.  A relatable character is important in my opinion very important in a story.  Then again, there are stories about people who do bad things who get what they deserve.  I also had qualms about when Professor Yocom said that folklore doesn’t have morals.  They don’t have to have morals, but certainly, there is something to be taken away from it.  This is a different topic though; perhaps I shall talk about it next time!