Jon Krakauer

As I am someone that has no interest in mountain climbing, Kevin Macdonald’s interpretation of Joe Simpson and Simon Yates’s intrepid journey, ‘Touching the Void’, is a powerful film that is sure to turn heads and has definitely made me reconsider spending time mountain climbing. This docudrama follows a tragic incident that results in one man’s fight for survival after Joe and Simon’s descent up the unclimbed Peruvian Andes and ends with the audience questioning what they would do. To achieve…

John Krakauer portrays a story about a young boy who goes on a trip to find out his true purpose.Using testimony of others and characterization,Krakauer,conveys Chris’s journey to finding ultimate freedom.The society in which he was in didn’t provide him enough happiness which lead to him leaving.Chris abandons everyone and everything that cared about him to do what truly made him happy.The author uses these 2 techniques to portray a message about finding what one can truly do leads to happiness…

In Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses, a 16-year-old boy named John Grady dreams of becoming a cowboy even though stuck in the mid 1900s, long after the frontier period has ended. The book follows John Grady’s quest for his ideal life as a cowboy and can be divided into four distinct parts following the four chapters. During each of these quarters, John Grady gains qualities which form him into a mythic western hero. In the first chapter, John Grady runs away from home and acts in the way…

Longships to Valhalla (Climax) EXT. SIGVIDS WAR CAMP-DAY Earl Sigvid and King Torvagg are standing atop a hill, overlooking the no-mans-land between them and the forces of Earl Tofi and Sven, Sigvids brother. Sigvid and Torvagg have created a makeshift campsite for themselves and their men. Some of the soldiers are SHARPENING their axes, some are PRAYING to their gods, others are resting by the campfire in preparation for the coming battle. TORVAGG I know this must be difficult for you, I…

There is a place‒ a place in which my heart lightens at the memory of. This is a place where everything seems too perfect, and where I learned of a concept called acatalepsy: the idea that it is truly impossible to understand anything. This secluded sanctimonious space known as Horse Shoe Lake on a hiking trail in Red River, New Mexico, heralds a feeling of pinning and existentialism for me. In my memory, the first thing my mind and heart are drawn to is that of the tantalizing lake. This lake…

It is impossible to know what drives people to take risks, but people do crazy, often dangerous, things when they undertake a mission. For example, Stanley Pearce walked thirty miles through the snow to stake a mining claim. Farah Ahmedi climbed a mountain on a prosthetic leg to reach freedom. Annie Johnson started a business from nothing but an idea so that she could support her children and not have others care for them. These real people had different reasons for doing what they did. Pearce…

than a month beside the gulf of California on five pounds of rice and a bounty of fish caught with a cheap rod and reel, an experience that made him confident he could harvest enough food to survive an extended stay in the Alaska wilderness, too” (Krakauer, 1996, P.162). It has been found that “the more incompetent you are at something, the less likely you'll realize you're bad at it unless a professional points it out” (Klosowski, 2014, para. 6). This is an example of the DKE because he was…

Denali, “Alex admitted that the only food in his pack was a ten-pound bag of rice; Alex’s cheap leather hiking boots were neither waterproof nor well insulated” (Krakauer pg. 5). While living his Alaskan odyssey he learned to find edible berries, hunt for porcupine, squirrels, grey bird and, “he bragged the biggest prize of all: “MOOSE!” (Krakauer pg. 166) Due to the cold weather and the inexperience he had on how to maintain meat from rotting his meat went…

In chapter XIV of Our Southern Highlanders, Horace Kephart delves into the reasons why the inhabitants of Appalachia accepted solitude and also analysing their family ties, customs, holidays and religious traditions. “The Law of the Wilderness” is composed of seven pages each dealing with a different topic, a good amount of information fills the pages providing a good insight into the minds and the way of living of the Appalachian inhabitants. From isolation to religious beliefs through some…

The book, Into the Wild, features Christopher McCandless, a young man who dies at the age of twenty-four from his adventure into the state of Alaska. Throughout his journey, McCandless suffers through the hardships of the wild but still manages to find alternative ways in order to achieve his goal. With his own ideas to create something out of nothing, he develops independency. McCandless demonstrates the values of the American spirit to an extent because he perseveres through all the obstacles…