“In April 1992, a young man from a well-to-do East Coast family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. Four months later his decomposed body was found by a party of moose hunters” (Krakauer 3). This young man from Jon Krakauer’s book Into the Wild was Chris McCandless, who left everything behind two years earlier to live a life closer to nature. He traveled the country living off the land and little money but was very happy. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Nature explains how nature makes man happy and gives him a full life, helping to show why McCandless left his family and belongings to live closer to nature. Nature is the one and only thing that is truly necessary to a man’s happiness, well being and existence
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Emerson’s views are shown as man should learn from nature itself to be in complete harmony with nature itself and therefore reach the height of …show more content…
Emerson and Krakauer have similar views on natures purpose in a man’s life such that nature is the only thing necessary to a man’s well being as seen in this excerpt from Into the Wild, “You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living” (Krakauer 57) and in this quote from Nature, “In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows. Nature says, -- he is my creature, and maugre all his impertinent griefs, he shall be glad with me” (Emerson 1). When summarized, both of the quotes define nature as being a vast resource of untapped happiness that man has forgotten. Another reason why Emerson and Krakauer are similar is that both Emerson and Krakauer agree that urbanism is destroying man’s ability to enjoy nature to the fullest and is creating a sad and dull generation. We see this when Krakauer says, “So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man
Emerson’s views are shown as man should learn from nature itself to be in complete harmony with nature itself and therefore reach the height of …show more content…
Emerson and Krakauer have similar views on natures purpose in a man’s life such that nature is the only thing necessary to a man’s well being as seen in this excerpt from Into the Wild, “You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living” (Krakauer 57) and in this quote from Nature, “In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows. Nature says, -- he is my creature, and maugre all his impertinent griefs, he shall be glad with me” (Emerson 1). When summarized, both of the quotes define nature as being a vast resource of untapped happiness that man has forgotten. Another reason why Emerson and Krakauer are similar is that both Emerson and Krakauer agree that urbanism is destroying man’s ability to enjoy nature to the fullest and is creating a sad and dull generation. We see this when Krakauer says, “So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man