Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Final Paragraph


Into the Wild Final Paragraph questions
Select one of the following questions to complete your paragraph on. Please ensure that it is a proper formal paragraph  that includes:
  • a hook
  • a proper thesis
  • author and title of the book (underlined or italicized)
  • at least two examples (embedded quotations)
  • explanation of the significance of the example/quotations
  • conclusion/comment/call to action
  • Sentence and vocabulary variety
  • Transition words
  • ONE paragraph (not an essay or multi-paragraphs)
  • Do not use "I", "I think", "In my opinion", "In this essay I will discuss" etc

1.Is it possible for a biography to be truly impartial? Is Into the Wild?
2.Is McCandless truly compassionate, as he is often described?
3.In Krakauer’s depiction of McCandless, is he a flat or round character? Static or dynamic?
4.Explain how McCandless’s quest for “ultimate freedom” is inherently selfish.
 5.How does Krakauer’s authorial presence affect McCandless’s story?
6.What does Into the Wild posit as the core of the problems between McCandless and his father?
7.What specific appeal does the wilderness have for all the adventure seekers described in Into the wild?
8.How is McCandless’s difficulty forgiving a driving force in his journeys?
9.How can McCandless’s Datsun symbolize his interpersonal relationships?
10.McCandless’s story, despite its tragic end, has inspired many copycats since the original publication in Into the Wild. Why might this be?

23 comments:

  1. Into The Wild
    Jon Krakauer
    a paragraph about compassion
    Compassion is something most people take for granted, especially individuals with a grudge against others of their species. A trait such as compassion can be a deciding factor in many things. For someone who gave it all away to trek to Alaska, Is Chris McCandless truly compassionate, as he is often described?
    Although he describes himself as compassionate, Chris McCandless has proven many times to be the exact opposite of what he makes himself out to be. Firstly, evidence of this can be pulled from a quote on page 55, “we’ll talk about this when I get back from Alaska”, and this quote is in response to an adoption request from a friend that McCandless made on his journey. To add to the evidence of the lack of compassion, page 69 has a very obvious example of a blatant lack of compassion. “This is the last communication you shall receive from me”. It makes one think about the moral character of Chris, what kind of person would write a letter like that; what kind of person would go so far as to announce his resignation from social interaction, to people that he made such a large impression on. Clearly Mr. McCandless is not as compassionate as he makes himself out to be.

    ReplyDelete
  2. “A lot of things remain unfinished by the end of the day and likewise remain incomplete by the end of life.”- Unknown. It was January 1993 when the first article of Chris McCandless story was published. Jon Krakauer wrote a nine thousand word article for the magazine Outside about the boy who was found dead in Alaska, A couple years later he published the book Into the Wild the story based on McCandless. Many people may think that they know the whole story; unfortunately we don’t know half of it we only know about what he wrote and what people claim. We never will know where he was going after Alaska this is apparent when the author claims, “Stop running so hard for intimacy, and become a member of the human community. But we will never know, because Doctor Zhivago was the last book Chris McCandless would ever read.” Which shows that the author even knows that the story is incomplete. Another point one can bring up would be the 10 months where Chris stopped keeping a journal it is said in the book “He also stopped keeping a journal, a practice he didn’t resume until he went to Alsaka.” We have no clue what went on in those 10 months one can only imagine.For Chris McCandless story to be complete he would have had to tell it himself a luxury he no longer has. -Alexis Boggs

    ReplyDelete
  3. Into The Wild: Final Paragraph
    Chris McCandless, the skeleton in the bus, was a selfish human, killed by the desire for freedom. Alex Supertramp, Chris’ alter-ego, was and is thought of as a self-absorbed being. He had everything: a good education, a family, a full life ahead of him, but gave it up to taste wild freedom. By taking off so suddenly he hurt his loved ones; left them to only question if he was dead or alive which is believed to be more harsh then knowing the truth. Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer wrote all about Alex’s feelings and he seemed to have his own connection to him: “As a youth, I am told, I was willful, self-absorbed, intermittently reckless, moody.” This goes to show his interest in Chris’s life because by learning more and more about Chris we suppose he may have been learning about his own feelings as well. Thereafter with having everything comes great despair, you feel trapped in all that you could ever need, creates a dreamer out of you. When you have nothing to hope for, work for you see no point in having anything at all. In McCandless’s case it made him more selfish. What most would believe to be an unthinkable goal to reach he thought he could accomplish, “He was now Alexander Supertramp, master of his own destiny.” In conclusion this guy with the education of a man and a heart of a boy was overwhelmed by his egotism and with that the death was served early to this great dreamer.

    Michaila Roberts

    ReplyDelete
  4. Into the Wild: Final Paragraph
    Chris McCandless was an interesting character; he wasn’t involved much with society and had problems with his family which made start his journey to Alaska. Chris was a mostly static character, he never listened to what people had to say, he always wanted to be perfect, and he wouldn’t talk to his family even when Stuckey told him to “Please call them!” he just replied with “maybe I will and maybe I won’t” which obviously meant no because he wanted nothing to do them. Back home the only person he enjoyed being with was his sister Carine but when he left his hometown he developed relationships with a few people which shows some change from the old Chris McCandless. Franz was an old man that Chris became friends with and they spent a lot of time together. They became so close that Franz offered to adopt him but Chris feared the thought of being in a family so he was forced to decline the offer. Throughout the whole story Chris was mainly static from when he was younger to when he grew older but did show some change towards people except for one, his parents.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. btw this is kelsey's amazing paragraph ^

      Delete
  5. Inspiration: Stimulation or arousal of the mind, feelings, etc., to special or unusual activity or creativity.
    In Jon Krakauer’s National bestseller Into the Wild, Chris travels all the way from Annandale, Virginia, to the great white Alaska. Some people would copy the actions of Christopher Johnson McCandless for emotional and physical freedom. For example in Chapters 14 and 15, Jon Krakauer took a similar journey to Alaska to climb the snow covered mountains to the summit. Why this was, he explains, was to feel the freedom of the cold, brisk, open air surrounding his vulnerable soul. “As a youth, I am told, I was willful, self-absorbed, intermittently reckless, moody. I disappointed my father in the usual way. Like McCandless”. After the release of the movie Into the Wild the media quickly envisioned hordes of copycats making dangerous pilgrimages in the footsteps of a character often seen as a spiritual visionary rather than an ill-prepared outside. The local chamber of commerce had already received a few dozen e-mails from would-be visitors, a few days after the release, wanting to track the unmonitored route taken by McCandless to the 1940s bus, used for decades as a shelter for hunters and other backcountry travelers. “We’re not coming up just to do this little pilgrimage," Alexander said. "This is one little element. We're not completely nuts." There was a lot of criticism to come your way if you were planning to take the journey that Chris McCandless one did in the early 1990s, but to stop the emotions you feel when you are inspired is almost impossible. Ron Alexander has long been intrigued with the true story of a young idealist who met his death in Alaska's unyielding wilderness in 1992. "I just would like to go for the adventure," he said. "I'm up here. I might as well go."

    ReplyDelete
  6. Chris McCandless’ quest for ultimate freedom was a very selfish gesture to all of the people in his life. In the book Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer describes many different points of view from people that were directly affected by the loss of Chris McCandless. Chris was well liked by everyone mentioned in the book and after learning of his death he changes all their lives drastically, most notably Ronald Franz who
    “decided [that] I couldn't believe in a God who would let something that terrible happen to a boy like Alex. After I dropped off the hitchhikers," Franz continues," I turned my van around, drove back to the store, and bought a bottle of whiskey. And then I went out into the desert and drank it. I wasn't used to drinking, so it made me real sick. Hoped it'd kill me, but it didn't. Just made me real, real sick.”
    The adventure Chris embarked on was for his enjoyment, not caring about the feelings of others if he were to parish. Despite all of the differences he had with his family; particularly his father they still cared greatly about his fate and the life choices he made during his last month’s alive
    ‘There is much about Chris that still baffles him and always will, but now he is slightly less baffled, and for that he [Walt McCandless] is grateful”
    In Short, Chris’ adventure one selfish because he didn’t consider just how much the people he abandoned really cared for him and were affected by his death.
    -David Henigman

    ReplyDelete
  7. What specific appeal does the wilderness have for all the adventure seekers described in Into the Wild?

    Many people that go out in the wilderness say they get a sense of relieve and freedom. Many of them don’t need the everyday stuff we have in our and live just fine without them. They don’t need fancy new sport cars or a new TV because they much rather be out exploring nature. They get the joy we get from buying things like a new cellphone or Laptop from just being in the wild. In Into the Wild Chris McCandless showed that you can get happiness from anything we might experience .The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. What Chris means by this is that If we all tried new things and different experiences we would be happier and more joy in our life instead of living the same life over and over again each day . If we have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living we will find the joy in different experiences easier. People that are fascinated by the wild seem to enjoy a lot of the simpler things in life.Eventhough they don’t have luxury things like us they still seem to be happier with their lives than most of us. A lot of them that live in the wild don’t have the stress of always following people rules and act like society is telling them to. They experience new and exciting things everyday by living out in the wild. I am reborn. This is my dawn. Real life has just begun. Living out in the wild would be like living a whole new life; it really is like leaving your old life behind and just starting over. At first it may seem hard and impossible to do but in the end it might help you become a happier person and appreciate life more. Maybe people that are fascinated by the wild really are just trying to escape their old lives or just want to have a bigger sense of freedom and relieve.
    Judith Krause

    ReplyDelete
  8. Final paragraph
    In Jon Krakauer’s book Into The Wild, The ability to forgive is not one of the many characteristics Chris McCandless possessed. Chris’s inability to forgive his parents is what drove him on the journey of a life time. Throughout high school and his college years Chris did what he was expected to do, but after discovering the haunting truth about his parent’s life when he was a child, he snapped. Chris was tired of doing what he was expected to do instead of what he wanted to do. The life he was living was not a life worth living anymore. Getting away from all the lies and pretend happiness is what started the drive to get away and disappear. “They thought he seemed happy. As they watched him stride across the stage and take him diploma” From the eyes of Chris’s parents he seemed content. Inside was whole different story. Inside was rebellious child waiting to be set free. “Does your mom know you’re going to Alaska? Does your dad know?” these questions were asked many times on his journey but were never answered. The force of his continuing journey grew stronger and stronger ever time there was a questioned involving his parents. As a result of these questions, Chris would disappear, leave. He would continue on to the next chapter or his adventure. When Chris finally may have come to terms and forgiven his parents and ready to return home his path was blocked. He came to terms in Alaska during the summer time, subsequently when “the Teklanika was at full flood, swollen with rain and snowmelt from glaciers high in the Alaska Range, running cold and fast.” Chris was unable to cross safely. That is to say Chris’s inability to forgive his parents is what drove him on the journey of a life time. It is also what trapped him is his adventure, which as a result of ended in his death.-Maddy

    ReplyDelete
  9. 7. What specific appeal does the wilderness have for all the adventure seekers described in Into the wild.

    A young man called Chris or Alex Supertramp from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt.McKinley. He dropped out of sight in 1990, changed his name, gave the entire balance of a twenty-four-thousand-dollar savings account to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet and finally became lost into the wild. This event makes thousands of citizens begin thinking of what specific appeal the wilderness has for all seekers while INTO THE WILD provides some probably answers for it.
    First and foremost, tired of society and relationship between others can be one of reasons to have people fall in love with wilderness. In this book, the directly stimulus for Chris to become Alex Supertramp is the hurt he suffered from his father’s double life between the ex-wife and Billie. The quotation, “If something bothered him, he wouldn’t come right out and say it, he’d keep it to himself, harboring his resentment, letting the bad feelings build and build” demonstrates a kind of depressive personality resulted in terribly anger and disappointed to the society. For many other adventure seekers, life obtains a lot of trouble, pain which any one of it can make people tired of society activities while wilderness can comfort them since nature never deceive anyone. As Alex said” You are wrong if you think the joy lives come principally from the human relationships.”
    Secondly, there is nothing more common than the desire to be different. Sometimes, some people choose to be tramp as a sense of being different from others. They are interested in exciting feelings and different experience which can help them to distinguish themselves to others.
    What’s more, it should never be denied that animals including human desire a kind of total freedom. In particularly, for human, being footloose has always exhilarated them. It is associated in our minds with escape from history and oppression and law and irksome obligations, with absolute freedom. This potential desire leads thousands of people walk into the wild including Alex. As it is said in Alex’s letter to Ron,” God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience.” Wild obtains an amazingly attraction to human from generations to generations. It is kind of natural characteristics for human to catch the freedom in the wild. That is one of the reason that wilderness appeal so many adventure seekers.

    Yuan Tian

    ReplyDelete
  10. If you had to describe Chris McCandless’s relationships it could be simply symbolized by his car. In the book Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer Chris drove an old beaten down Datsun in which he would never leave. His parents offered to buy him a new car but he refused. Even though it had some dents and scratches he loved the car from the moment he got it. The way he views his car is similar to the way he views his friends. He looks past his friend’s minor flaws and whether or not they have money. He picks his friends based on them as a person. Another reason that his Datsun symbolizes his relationships is that later in the book, the Datsun runs into some problems and stops working. Immediately he leaves the car without looking back. Again this is like his relationships because when one of his friends makes a more serious mistake or says something that he doesn’t like, he leaves them just as easily as he left his car. He even left his parents because of what he saw as their many flaws and never talked to them again. That is how Chris McCandless’s interpersonal relationships are symbolized by his car.
    -Haylan Cross

    ReplyDelete
  11. 5. How does Krakauer's authorial presence affect McCandless's story?
    Jon Krakaur states, in the authors notes of Into the Wild, that “I won’t claim to be an impartial biographer. McCandless’s strange tale struck a personal note that made a dispassionate rendering of the tragedy impossible. Through most of the book, I have tried-and largly succeeded, I think- to minimize my authorial presence.” Krakauer’s authorial presence affected McCandless’ story in a way that made it feel like there is a lack of connection to McCandles; he stated all the facts that lead to his death but there wasn’t any emotion. For example, “I report with great certainty that H.mackenzii, the wild sweet pea, killed the boy.” This shows the lack of emotion from Krakauer. In the author’s notes his final sentence is “My convictions should be apparent soon enough, but I will leave it to the reader to form his or her own opinion of Chris McCandless.” This is showing that he wanted there to be a lack of emotion he wanted the reader to have all the facts and have their own opinion. In conclusion, Jon Krakaur could have made this story so that his feelings on the matter are clear as day but he chose to only state the facts good and bad. This allows the reader to create their own picture of Chris McCandless. This is significant because McCandless’s story is so well known and there are a lot of opinions as to who Chris McCandless was and what lead to his death.

    - Jessica Richards

    ReplyDelete
  12. Into The Wild
    By Jon Krakauer
    If you decided to drop everything and go into the wild would you tell someone in your family? Chris McCandless’s quest for ultimate freedom was selfish because he never told any of his family members not even his sister what he was doing. When Chris ‘disappeared’ his family was very upset and worried not knowing whether he was alive or not Carrine Chris’s sister talking about how it affected Billie said,” Whenever we were out driving and saw a hitchhiker if he looked anything like Chris, we’d turn around and circle back. It was a terrible time.” When Chris met Franz, Franz became really attached to Chris and even wanted to adopt him but after Chris left just as quickly as he was brought into Franz’s life he was left wondering if he was alive and when he found out the he died from 2 hitchhikers that he picked up, “I turned my van around, drove back to the store, and bought a bottle of whiskey. And then I went out into the desert and drank it. I wasn't used to drinking, so it made me real sick. Hoped it'd kill me, but it didn't. Just made me real, real sick.” He recalled. These examples were only 2 of many that were in the book but they were the best ones.
    -Kevin Patenaude

    ReplyDelete
  13. Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer has inspired many copycats to go“into the wild” even though Chris died for a number of reasons. First off his consistent war with both of his parents is shared in every possible way with adolescents the world over. Also the communist ideals that Chris follows have appealed to many people over the centuries. Finally the great Alaskan tundra which is the setting of Jack London’s books has caused many an adventure into the Alaskan tundra. In conclusion in the immortal words of Thoreau “Nature was here something savage and awful, though beautiful”.
    Willy Cahoon Question 10

    ReplyDelete
  14. After fulfilling his wildest dreams and almost living through an astonishing adventure Chris McCandless has become a changed man, a dynamic character; Krakauer has depicted him as a constantly evolving person. When Chris graduated high-school he followed his parents’ directions and went for a post-secondary education, he even convinced them he would be attending law school. He was a rich kid with a dream and a cage holding him back. After breaking free of the cage that was his family, it was like a new person exploded out of him. Leaving his favored car behind, literally burning all of his money and becoming homeless; this is a new Chris, or Alex. There were physical changes as well, he grew a beard and lost weight, “Malnutrition and the road have taken their toll on his body.” The majority of these changes were psychological through, visiting and getting to know all sorts of people he would have not normally met. After getting into the wild like he had planned to he slowly started to realize that he missed the life he used to live. “Satisfied apparently with what he had learned during his two months of solitary life in the wild, McCandless decided to return to civilization.”

    ReplyDelete
  15. “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” -Dalai Lama. In Jon Krakauers' Into the Wild, Chris McCandless is not only smart and handsome but he is also compassionate. This is portrayed when Chris's father talks about their hunting trips and how whenever he killed animals, he would cry. When he was at the bus, he had to shoot a moose to stay alive but when he shot the moose, he felt so much guilt and pain because he had taken an innocent life. Throughout the book, Chris shows a lot of compassion and love towards things he holds most dear. In conclusion, Chris overall had been compassionate towards everything because he felt the pain that they had.

    -Anna Serdyukova :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

    ReplyDelete
  16. Taylor Spenner Δ

    December 20, 2012 Into the Wild Final Paragraph

    During Chris McCandless’s odyssey to Alaska, in the novel “Into the Wild,” he met many people who got attached to him, not knowing that their hearts would be crushed by this one boy and his dreams. Chris’s quest for “freedom” was inherently selfish, because during his quest he created so many strong bonds with the many people he came across people, but then without him knowing what he was doing, he completely used cold turkey and walked out of their lives just as quickly as he entered. McCandless always tried to escape being attached to another human being for too long “McCandless was thrilled to be on his way north, and he was relieved as well-relieved that he had again evaded the impending threat of human intimacy.” Another example of his abandonment of his past life, plus the torment he let his friends and his family feel is, “Have you let your people know what you’re up to? Does your mom know you’re going to Alaska? Does your Dad know?” This is showing how everyone around him is concerned about how he is just leaving, and possibly going to die, without even speaking a word to his own family. To wrap this paragraph up, Chris was a brave man, yet ignorant, and this ignorance will and was the death of him.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Is Chris McCandlress’s lack of the ability to forgive instrumental in his adventure that ultimately lead to his death? Yes even at the start if he had been able to forgive his parents for their crimes of their younger life he wouldn’t have left in the first place and gone on the trip that ended his life. In his trip to his El Segundo he learns about his parents past lives and that his dad had another son younger than him he said he felt like “his entire childhood was a fiction.” Then when he gets to Alaska he learns to forgive and forget for example when kills the moose he goes from calling it “The greatest tragedy of my life.” To no longer caring and moving on with life and survival. So in then end his journey was driven by his ability to forgive and in the end he learns how to forgive but sadly he never got the chance to use it because he died before he saw anyone again.
    Evan Hughes
    INTO THE WILD
    Jon Krakauer

    ReplyDelete
  18. Into The Wild final paragraph

    Have you ever had a fight with your father? Well alex has. Into the wild by Jon Krakauer can show how fatal argumets can really get. Alex’s sister Carine always said “they never saw eye to eye on nearly everything” His parents wanting to get him a new car Is one example. No matter how much they insisted he would never accept a new car from his parents, he would say “I cant believe they’d try and buy me a car or that they think that I’d actually let them pay for my law school if I was going to go .”Considering this, it may have been the aruging and fighting that sent him on his journey, or maybe it was his parents need for materialistc items that sent him over the edge,we don’t know for sure, but something sure did.So in conclusion, Don’t argue with your parents, their always right (or so says my dad).
    Mike.A

    ReplyDelete
  19. Brandon Cotton
    Into The Wild Final Paragraph, Question 2.

    The Oxford Dictionary defines compassion as “sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others”. In this regard, Chris McCandless can accurately be described as ‘compassionate’. He met many people in his travels, and became emotionally attached to quite a few of them, including Ron Franz and Wayne Westerberg. Chris kept in contact with both of them - even after Ron asked the awkward question of asking to adopt Chris and Wayne’s incarceration for committing a federal crime. Finding the will and resources to communicate with people who McCandless might never have seen again while wandering the country on only the barest of necessities quite aptly demonstrates the young man’s consideration for others. Morally, Chris doesn’t stop with people- but cares for the life of animals, even when his own life depends on its death. He was slowly starving in the Alaskan bush when he shot a moose but later wrote in his journal, “…Wish I had never shot the moose. One of the greatest tragedies of my life.” In Jon Krakauer’s “Into the Wild”, Chris McCandless is regarded as a compassionate fellow, and rightfully so.

    ReplyDelete
  20. 7. The adventure seekers in Into the Wild all seem to be searching for a life with a kind of simplicity, which they believe they can find in the wilderness. High-risk living leaves little time for the complicated problems of modern society, and this seems to be much of the appeal for these men. They also seem to believe that there is some core of truth hidden beneath all the layers of modern life, and this can only be found in the wild. Finally, surviving the challenges posed by this way of life provide a feeling of deep accomplishment for these often ambitious or competitive men.
    - Taylor B

    ReplyDelete
  21. Chris McCandless wanted to be free from everyone else. He left his friends and family behind. Little did he know the impact he as making on all of them. All he thought about was himself, He loved his sister yet he refused to write to her or his family. After burning all his money Chris McCandless left on a journey for uncharted lands. “Does your mom know you’re going to Alaska? Does your dad know?” This was said many times to Chris along his journey and it makes me wonder if he really cared. In my own thought, I believed Chris McCandless was a selfish individual.

    -Kris

    ReplyDelete
  22. Brooke Chromik
    Into the wild
    By Jon Krakauer
    ~ Alex supertramp was very passionate about the work he did to get to the place where he reslly wanted to be. the Auther of the book put passion and alot of real emotion Into the Wild. Jon krakaur was very compassionate to the family of Alexs, when they went to the trailors to see where their son spent his last moments of life. Alex Supertramp was noticed as a caring, hard working individual, he met many people on his jouney and made friends from all over. although he neverr really had a relationship with his parents, he met the nicest man that offered to adopt Alex (i forgot his name). Alex said no because he is passionate about his work,where he wants to be inlife. alex will do anything to be in the place where he really wants to be, which Alex Supertramp wanted to be in the wild, and that is where he will be.

    ReplyDelete