Into Thin Air Analysis

Superior Essays
A man’s desire is always to conquer something. Whether it is an object or a task at hand, the nature of man has always been wired to conquering something by adapting, adjusting, and overcoming to whatever is put in front of them. Jon Krakauer, a brilliant writer, delivers and personifies this notion to a tee. An expert mountain climber, Krakauer has been to the highest peak on the face of this Earth, but at times he felt he was at the lowest depths of despair. This sudden swing of emotion is what Krakauer thrives on in his writing. The thrill of the close calls, the pure adrenaline for excitement, and the willingness to sacrifice his life for thrill-seeking adventure seem to be crucial factors that Krakauer believed in what he wrote and seemingly …show more content…
With his life-altering stories of adventure, incredible attention to detail, and his puppeteering with the numerous roles of identity, Krakauer always has the reader on the edge of their seat. In his brilliant novels Into the Wild and Into Thin Air, Krakauer seamlessly evokes emotion in his writing, causing the reader to picture themselves in the midst of a hellacious battle against Nature, life’s immovable object. Krakauer portrays himself as the journalist who seems critical of his peers and wants to stay out of the picture, but is seemingly thrust into the spotlight in Into Thin Air. This situation proves his love for adventure and quenches the hunger of a man’s desire to find and conquer the task in front of him. In the early stages of Into The Wild, Chris McCandless seeks to conquer the Alaskan terrain. To accomplish this, Chris believes he must sever ties with his closest friends and family by saying “Please return all mail I receive to the sender. It might be a very long time before I return …show more content…
This revelation of thought and action reveals that Krakauer believes in this himself, as evidenced by his own story of Into Thin Air. Krakauer later on in Into the Wild, compares himself with McCandless. He says “I was a raw youth who mistook passion for insight and acted according to an obscure, gap-ridden logic. I thought climbing the Devils Thumb would fix all that was wrong with my life. In the end, of course, it changed almost nothing. But I came to appreciate that mountains make poor receptacles for dreams. And I lived to tell my tale” (Krakauer 155). Krakauer is stating that McCandless would have most likely matured if he had survived, but since he did not, he is only known for his ignorance and stupidity. His comparison between him and his character shows his writing to a tee. His love for adventure and his willingness to sacrifice his life was apparent while he tried to scale Devil’s Thumb. His depth of detail is shown through Chris’ multiple identities and his intricate and precise research. Finally, Krakauer shows each identity extremely well and portrays them perfectly in the eyes of the reader. These three bold styles of writing is what makes Krakauer’s writing relatively and universally unique. He feeds off the reader’s senses and emotion, knowing that the novels’ consistent pace and extremely personal detail will keep the reader engaged throughout the entire story. Also,

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