Fear And Regret In Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air

Fear and regret can affect an individual’s mind to such an extent where they can make life-altering choices. In the non-fictional novel, Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer faces difficulty assisting not only himself but others through his journey on Mount Everest. He experiences many different stages of regret and fear on his expedition; first being, the lack of oxygen. This lead to Jon’s fear of his possible fate and the remorse of his actions due to deficiency of trust in his peers and the lost the chance to help his fellow journeyers through the storm. Secondly, his patience on the Hillary step. This ultimately caused Jon to be part of the distasteful day and feel tremendous regret. Finally, leaving his peers alone to die. This obligated Jon to second guess himself and feel nothing but guilt. In the work of, Into Thin Air, Krakauer discusses that fear and regret had negatively affected those life-altering choices, which, …show more content…
Jon is impacted negatively because of the trauma and unpredictable occurrences that Jon faced when making those life-altering decisions, which based off of his fear and regret. Jon takes the audience on a detrimental journey of how fear and regret impact how an individual can comprehend situations which leads to life-altering decisions. The first appearance that fear and regret show up is the lack of oxygen in Jon’s tank because of the amount of trust formed, it hindered the survival aspect; second, is the patience in others at the Hillary Step causing Jon to feel anxious and put his life at risk; lastly is the guilt that Jon feels when leaving his peers to freeze to death, which then causes him to second-guess himself. Such factors [fear and regret] can cause an individual to put their own lives at risk which can cause the mental state to