Stanford students possess an intellectual vitality. Reflect on an idea or experience that has been important to your intellectual development. When I read Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, I discovered a valuable connection between man and nature, a connection that continues to impact my life today. While following Chris McCandless on his journey across Western America and Alaska, I found his transcendental views to be very inspiring. After reading that book, I try to immerse myself in nature as…
I feel that Chris envisioned a new life for himself. He wanted a way out, so he could restore his dreams and aspirations. He just went to different lengths to get there. There being Alaska and all the adventures he has taken. Mccandless was a visionary , he sought a way to live the life he dreamed to the fullest extent. Chris is and educated human being, both street and book smart. The evidence of him being book smart is him graduating from Emory University. As well as him receiving acceptance…
“In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue,” or so goes the popular children’s rhyme about well-loved Italian colonizer, Christopher Columbus. However, what the poem does not mention is that is 1492, after sailing the ocean blue, Christopher Columbus committed genocide. After his arrival in their home country, Columbus wrought irreparable offences against native groups in the Americas, as the American Indian Movement (AIM) recounts, “Columbus was the beginning of the American holocaust, ethnic…
As Western Europe, Africa, and the Americas began forming contacts with each other, social and economic transformations occurred all throughout the Atlantic world in 1492 to 1750. Most of these social interactions began when Italian explorer Christopher Columbus tried to reach India going west but instead is credited for opening up the Americas for European colonization. Columbus unknowingly arrived in the New World, and the implications were profound for both the Natives and the Europeans.…
A hero. What does a hero actually mean? To me, a hero is someone who does something brave to sacrifice themselves for others. A hero can be the one who saves a specific spot or place where there are a lot of people in the area during an attack or something. What makes a hero is the bravery and the intelligence of one person for themselves or others. First, It takes a brave hero to do tiring things in a rough situation. For example in passage one it states that, “A self-described…
Money Matters: The Art of Corruption Growing up in modern America’s east coast, a highly a pressure ridden, materialistic pothole. In the investigative journalism piece Into the Wild by John Krakauer, the author goes into the detailed adventures, and experiences Chris Mccandless endured both on his trek to Alaska and the time in the wild. Chris Mccandless, on paper, had the perfect life, he was raised by a well-to-do family outside Washington D.C., graduated Emory University with no student…
Christopher Columbus was morally incompetent, greedy, and cruel according to Howard Zinn. In A People’s History of the United States Zinn makes it clear that Columbus was never a hero and should not be credited as such. Columbus’ only intention was to go on a voyage for purely monetary reasons and he never had benevolent intentions. On top of this, Colombus and his men extorted, imprisoned, and abused countless Indians in the Americas. Zinn is attempting to shed light on the fact that Columbus…
I believe that N.Scott Momaday means that it was navigation to a new world , but also a transition in time that led to new important discoveries when he describes Christopher Columbus's voyage as “a passage from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance.” His reasons for this characterization is that part of the irony consists of people Eurocentric understanding of history. But also since “it is everywhere a common designation of the Americas but also because it represents one of the greatest…
Into the Wild Essay “I felt in myself a superabundance of energy which found no outlet in our quiet life.” ( Tolstoy, Family Happiness) I believed Chris McCandless was not selfish for disappearing without telling no one about what he was thinking of doing or how he wanted to live his life. I chose this quote because Chris felt alone that no one understand his mindset, how he saw things, he didn't need wealth. Just to be free, and no one understood him, where he felt alone…
Could last 54 days in the canadian wilderness by yourself and only with a hatchet and torn windbreaker? In the book Hatchet by Gary paulsen brian is in a traumatizing plane crash and is in the canadian wilderness for 54 days. I think it would be hard because brian had never been alone in the middle of nowhere never even hunted and having to learn or you starve. It would be hard but he did it and he learned something that can help him in the future anytime. Brain has never done anything like this…