{"id":74,"date":"2006-04-19T20:43:43","date_gmt":"2006-04-20T01:43:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2006\/325\/04\/19\/into-the-wild-captions-and-photos\/"},"modified":"2008-02-13T20:57:29","modified_gmt":"2008-02-14T01:57:29","slug":"into-the-wild-captions-and-photos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2006\/325\/04\/19\/into-the-wild-captions-and-photos\/","title":{"rendered":"“into the wild” captions and photos"},"content":{"rendered":"

http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/pierrefrancoise\/127579972\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was like he was off in his own universe\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Lori Zarza of Chris McCandless as a McDonalds employee, pg 40.<\/p>\n

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This picture is of a young man standing in an open area which looks similar to a baseball field.\u00c2\u00a0 Although he is surrounded by characteristics of city life \u00e2\u20ac\u201c high fences, trucks, buildings, dirt \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 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.\u00c2\u00a0 This man in his own world of light reminded me of Chris.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 Similarly, Chris is seeking to escape from the world\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s boundaries, authorities, and legalities, yet he cannot seem to rid himself of marks of civilization.\u00c2\u00a0 All along his journey he is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153saved\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by people that he keeps running into, and ultimately, his refuge is in a bus that was put in the wilderness for hunters.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/17098578@N00\/130424353\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We were always trying to pull him back from the edge.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Walt McCandless thinking about their hike as a family in Rocky Mtn National Park<\/p>\n

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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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pinky which he lost to frostbite on Mount St. Elias.\u00c2\u00a0 What I find intriguing about the juxtaposition of this quote of Chris\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s father with the endearing picture of the adventurous father and son is that Walt would only take Chris so far.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 The closeness and companionship of the father and his son in the picture stands in direct contrast to the relationship between Walt and Chris:\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/akfirebug\/86699103\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u0153\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6ascents of remote mountains in Alaska\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6obscure spires, steep and frightening\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6The danger bathed the world in a halogen glow that caused everything \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the sweep of the rock, the orange and yellow lichens, the texture of the clouds \u00e2\u20ac\u201c to stand out in brilliant relief.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Jon Krakauer on his fantasizing about climbing through Alaskan\/Canadian mountains<\/p>\n

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This picture of Denali National Park in September seems to be perfectly described by Krakauer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s quote.\u00c2\u00a0 In fact, the close resemblance between the picture and the quote almost validate his authority as the narrator.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s desire to get lost in such a beautiful and powerful landscape.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/awebers\/130750861\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u0153They were drawn across the storm-racked ocean, drawn west past the edge of the known world\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6reading of these monks, one is moved by their courage, their reckless innocence, and the urgency of their desire.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Jon Krakauer relating the bravery of monks to the adventurous spirit of Ruess and McCandless<\/p>\n

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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.\u00c2\u00a0 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 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153cannot help but think\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of the daring, enlightened journeys of Ruess and McCandless.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 One can even see a few men in business suits in the background.\u00c2\u00a0 So in a sense, this picture shows a couple ironies.\u00c2\u00a0 The first irony relates to Krakauer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s portrayal of McCandless as a monk.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 The second irony refers to Krakauer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s account of the journey of the monks as they were purposefully placing themselves in dangerous, volatile circumstances, exploring the unknown.\u00c2\u00a0 But this picture shows a handful of them relaxing and drinking coffee together, one of the most peaceful and conventional things to do.<\/p>\n

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In working on this project, I tried to not take these captions out of context.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 In a way, this is what Krakauer was\u00c2\u00a0did in writing Into the Wild<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 It is this same authority that Krakauer is subject to in recreating Chris\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s story, and although it is a difficult task to recreate the last few years of a person\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life, Krakauer is inherently entrusted with the power to twist, reword, create and compose Chris\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mysterious and intriguing journey into the wilderness.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/pierrefrancoise\/127579972\/ \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was like he was off in his own universe\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Lori Zarza of Chris McCandless as a McDonalds employee, pg 40. \u00c2\u00a0 This picture is of a young man standing in an open area which looks similar to a baseball field.\u00c2\u00a0 Although he is surrounded by characteristics of city life \u00e2\u20ac\u201c high fences, … Continue reading “into the wild” captions and photos<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2006\/325\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2006\/325\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2006\/325\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2006\/325\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2006\/325\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2006\/325\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2006\/325\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2006\/325\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2006\/325\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}