Wilderness

Mark Friske 11/1/14 FYS Professor Lauritzen “In wildness is the salvation of the world” – Aldo Leopold All three of the writers that we read pieces from would agree with Leopold in this quote. It is a common theme across the literature of Aldo Leopold, Wendell Berry, and William Faulkner that we are using the land selfishly and recklessly. Each believes that we should have upmost respect for the earth we have been blessed to live on. First off, in “The Land Ethic” by Leopold, it becomes…

Although some describe McCandless in terms of a “kook” or even a “pseudoliterary stance” compound, it should be mentioned that such individuals have not dove deep enough into the personality that is Christopher J McCandless. By no means does this say that McCandless does not have any obvious flaws in his persona or ego, but it should be mentioned that McCandless is the involuntary hero is his life and adventures. McCandless is undeserving of being defaced with such insulting names simply because…

“Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.” Christopher Mccandless's life can be represented throughout this quote. Mccandless’s adventure brings many questions to the surface but conveniently fails to answer many of them. His home life was not perfect, yet it was not horrible. Mccandless was talented with music, and usually kept to himself. He always felt out of place and had different, divergent ideas than everybody else in his family. Chris grew up with a mother and father,…

The Grizzly man also known as Timothy Treadwell thought he could be one with nature by going to Alaska and living with bears for 13 years. Some would consider him a transcendentalist like the writers Emmerson and Thoreau. Some would argue he is just a nut case playing with bears just like Thoreau was a loser who played in Emmerson’s back yard only to move back with his parents. Thoreau was so into nature he only lived about 2 miles from town. Some would consider Treadwell and Thoreau very…

In Jon Krakauer’s biographical tale into the wild, Chris McCandless struggles to follow a path of transcendental ideals by going off the grid soon after he graduates college. While on his journey, McCandless travels to beautiful landscapes and tries to live in self-sufficiency. However, this journey towards a higher spiritual living eventually leads him to his own demise. Reflecting upon McCandless story, his nomadic traveling was simply a search for balance between the spiritual and modern…

Writing a Rhetorical Analysis on conservation efforts can be a daunting task when there are thousands of organizations to choose from. Most conservation organizations focus on one or two specific things, whether it’s the terrible treatment of tiger cubs, the dwindling natural habitat including our rainforest’s and redwoods, or the ongoing, daily extinction of thousands of species, understandably no one cause successfully fully covers the big picture. In the series “Nature is Speaking”, various…

Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water portrays various lives of characters intertwined by the Native American folkloric gods. Lionel Red Dog, a man turning 40 years old attempts to reconstruct his life on a better path while struggling with his identity. As a born Canadian with an Asian ethnicity, my personal reading of Lionel and Charlie’s father Portland Looking Bear highlights their struggle with identity. Although never explicitly stated, the conflicting needs of being an individual and…

Describe in a paragraph the trip Muir took exploring the ice cone, what did he find? Include a quote. Muir went out exploring nature at any opportunity he could find. During one of his many expeditions, Muir encountered an avalanche in his efforts to find out the source of the thunderous noise. He initially mistook the noise to be coming of from falling boulders. His encounter with the avalanche leads him to categorize the avalanches in two and he further states where exactly the annual…

In To Build a Fire, Jack London’s story talks about a man who decided to take a journey alone in the hostile environment of Yukon that tragically leads to his death. The man is new to the area since he came from the south. Also, he is new to such cold, harsh weather. The story begins when the man wants to take a journey to the boys that are prospecting for gold. However, his arrogant prevents him from listening to the old-timer from Sulphur Creek who warned him about the danger of traveling…

A Strong Ego Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer is a book surrounding the whereabouts of Chris McCandless and why McCandless really decided to take the big journey into the Bush. Into the Wild tries connect the dots with McCandless´ actions with different young adults who happened to do similar journeys like this. Krakauer interviewed different people that McCandless has encountered through his adventure and how he reacted towards them. McCandless also had a small notebook that allows us to go into…