Family Happiness Epigraph Essay

“I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love. I felt in myself a superabundance of energy which found no outlet in our quiet life” - Leo Tolstoy (Krakauer 15). While I read the book, this quote caught my eye because it talks about living a life full of excitement. I can see why Chris McCandless’s would have been inclined to highlight this passage in Tolstoy’s novel. This selection explains Chris’s constant desire to be on the move, explore, and live off the land. It’s an exciting life, like Tolstoy writes about in “Family Happiness”. I feel that Krakauer used this epigraph to allow for the reader to understand Chris’s viewpoint for living a life bursting …show more content…
In this chapter, the author tells of his incredibly difficult experience climbing the Devils Thumb in Alaska. I feel that the author used this passage to compare his and McCandless’s personalities. McCandless had an uncontrollable desire to live in the wilderness and to not be strapped down, and Krakauer had an uncontrollable urge to climb. Both knew the task at hand would be difficult, dangerous, and could potentially be deadly, yet they continued to press on. When Krakauer writes about McCandless and then tells of his own experiences in the wilderness, the reader is given some insight into the mind of an explorer, like McCandless. This makes McCandless seem less ignorant and more driven. Krakauer and McCandless share this drive to do the unexpected and seemingly impossible. This quote from John Muir’s The Mountains of California expresses the feeling of “I must do this”. It touches on the act of following the voice inside you and simply doing what you feel you must to reach the goals you have set for yourself. I was intrigued, reading this epigraph. It evoked in me the question of what my own uncontrollable desire could be, and how long it will take me to figure that