As the term itself implies, literary journalism contains journalistic work, too. Krakauer spent approximately one year retracing McCandless’ path and additionally based part of his work on documentaries recorded by the protagonist himself. Krakauer modifies his narrative throughout Into the Wild hinging upon the situation. In order to highlight a contrast of his version to a journalistic reportage about McCandless, I have chosen an example of a mainstream newspaper article by The New York Times, published in September 13, 1992.
“ANCHORAGE, Sept. 12 (AP)-Last Sunday a young hiker, stranded by an injury, was found dead at a remote camp in the Alaskan interior. No one I yet certain who he was. But his diary and two notes found at the camp tell …show more content…
The language is direct and clear. Already the heading implies a rather negative stance of the article toward McCandless: “Dying in the wild, a hiker recorded the terror” (98). The article was likely to be the first glimpse the world ever got about McCandless. The word terror implies that McCandless suffered pain and desperation on his trip, which is not the case as this contradicts Krakauer’s depictions of McCandless for evidence indicating happiness and joy can be found throughout Into the Wild. The reader of the article thinks that McCandless died pathetically. There is no background information about McCandless’ personality or story and the fact that McCandless attempted to return to society at one point but failed because of increased water levels in the surrounding rivers is not even mentioned. As we know from Krakauer, he never gave up but found himself trapped which killed him eventually. After reading Into the Wild, the reader will probably disagree with the heading of the NYT article. Journey or trip would be a more suitable and especially neutral description as opposed to the term terror. The article does not at all portray McCandless neutrally and continues to rather relegate McCandless. His efforts to …show more content…
He wanted people to know who he was because normally “Alex” (the fake name McCandless used during the entire journey to introduce himself to other people and for his journals as well as letters) speaks of himself in third person singular but suddenly switches to first person with the intention to emphasize his bad condition. However, is anyone entitled to claim his survival attempts in Alaska were progressively futile? McCandless had been out in Alaskan Wild for more than three months and much longer travelled around the US, partially living in similar or even worse conditions when he we was travelling around the Southwest of the US, for instance (Sierra Nevada, California and especially Arizona). Thus, I do not comprehend the word choice of futile to report about the story of a human who had died only a day before the publication. McCandless being desperate does not make him survival attempts useless, which would be a synonym for futile. The word is not neutral in its meaning which is commonly expected in fact-based news reporting. The article seems to already condemn
“ANCHORAGE, Sept. 12 (AP)-Last Sunday a young hiker, stranded by an injury, was found dead at a remote camp in the Alaskan interior. No one I yet certain who he was. But his diary and two notes found at the camp tell …show more content…
The language is direct and clear. Already the heading implies a rather negative stance of the article toward McCandless: “Dying in the wild, a hiker recorded the terror” (98). The article was likely to be the first glimpse the world ever got about McCandless. The word terror implies that McCandless suffered pain and desperation on his trip, which is not the case as this contradicts Krakauer’s depictions of McCandless for evidence indicating happiness and joy can be found throughout Into the Wild. The reader of the article thinks that McCandless died pathetically. There is no background information about McCandless’ personality or story and the fact that McCandless attempted to return to society at one point but failed because of increased water levels in the surrounding rivers is not even mentioned. As we know from Krakauer, he never gave up but found himself trapped which killed him eventually. After reading Into the Wild, the reader will probably disagree with the heading of the NYT article. Journey or trip would be a more suitable and especially neutral description as opposed to the term terror. The article does not at all portray McCandless neutrally and continues to rather relegate McCandless. His efforts to …show more content…
He wanted people to know who he was because normally “Alex” (the fake name McCandless used during the entire journey to introduce himself to other people and for his journals as well as letters) speaks of himself in third person singular but suddenly switches to first person with the intention to emphasize his bad condition. However, is anyone entitled to claim his survival attempts in Alaska were progressively futile? McCandless had been out in Alaskan Wild for more than three months and much longer travelled around the US, partially living in similar or even worse conditions when he we was travelling around the Southwest of the US, for instance (Sierra Nevada, California and especially Arizona). Thus, I do not comprehend the word choice of futile to report about the story of a human who had died only a day before the publication. McCandless being desperate does not make him survival attempts useless, which would be a synonym for futile. The word is not neutral in its meaning which is commonly expected in fact-based news reporting. The article seems to already condemn