Creative Project!

My Interpretive Dancing!

Characterization Chart

By the end of Into the Wild. I thought that Chris was unjustified in his trip to Alaska that ultimately ended his life. Chris had reason to mad at his parents but he kept that anger inside and didn't communicate and let his parents know why he was mad. By doing this,Chris seemed like he almost wanted to stay mad at his parents. He wanted to show them that what they did was wrong in a drastic way.

I don't think Chris was at all crazy. He just had a rather big ego. He though that he could survive and take care of himself. He wasn't trying to end his life by going into Alaska unprepared, he was trying to get his parent's attention and respect. He was defying them and all of humanity for their social injustice.

Page	Chapter	Quote/Characterization	Conclusion
4	1	"Five feet seven or eight with a wiry build, he[Chris] claimed to be twenty-four years old."
5	1	"He was congenial and seemed well educated."
6	1	"I won't run into anything I can't deal with on my own."-Alex	He is a proud person because he won't let anyone help him.
16	3	There was something about the youngster's eyes. Dark and emotive...and conveyed a vulnerability that made Westerberg want to take the kid under his wing."
18	3	Alex always finished jobs.	He was a hard and dedicated worker.
21	3	He wouldn't accept gifts.	He felt that everything should be earned.
30	4	Ernie didn't pay Alex for working so he left.	He is not naïve.
31	4	"He made a point of staying in touch."	He was dedicated.
35	4	Alex was thrown off course when he was trying to get to the ocean many times. One time he was in a really bad swamp and continued through it to get where he wanted to be.	He is really persistent.
42	5	"Didn't like to be around too many people, though. Temperamental."
44	5	"He needed his solitude at times, but he wasn't a hermit. He did a lot of socializing.
45	5	"He had an amazing voice."
51	6	Alex would lecture Franz about the shortcomings of his life.	He is bold because he didn't care if what he was doing was socially acceptable, he wanted what he felt was the best to be carried out.
52	6	Alex would rant and yell and scream about things that made him angry.	He had a passion for justice.
54	6	Chris called Franz when he needed a ride.	He is not afraid to ask for something. (Though I feel he could have gotten a ride, so this only applies when he knows he could have gotten what he wanted without anyone's help.)
55	6	Chris would not let Franz adopt him and kept him at arm's length away.	Chris didn't want to have anything expected from him and wanted to have nothing keeping him attached to one place.
62	7	"'He definitely wasn't what you'd call mechanically minded.' Nor was McCandless endowed with a surfeit of common sense."
64	7	Both father and son were stubborn and high strung.
65	7	"You could tell he didn't take relationships lightly."	He looked for a deeper meaning in the way people interacted with one another.
67	7	"Unlike most of us, he was the sort of person who lived out his beliefs."	Alex didn't want to be a hypocrite.  He thought that beliefs had no purpose without works to back them.
91	9	"After all the lone trail is the best"-Everett Ruess	Jon Krakauer believed that Chris felt the same way. Chris liked to be alone most of all.
91	9	"I have always been unsatisfied with life as most people live it." - Everett Ruess	Chris., like Everett, didn't like the way of society and wanted to be fulfilled.
101	10	Chris lied on his forms for a job for Westerberg saying his address was "Non e of your damn business."	Chris has a sense of human but is angered by prying people.
102	10	"Chris almost always had short hair and was clean shaven."
111	11	"He resisted instruction of any kind."	He was strong willed, rebellious, and stubborn.
113	11	He would spend his Friday nights with those living on the streets.	He didn't care about social barriers and considered all people equal.
118	12	Before Chris disappeared, he was drunk and told his father how much he appreciated him.	Chris has respect that he doesn't voice because of his pride.
118	12	"Chris was good at almost everything he tried which made him supremely overconfident."
119	12	"If you attempted to talk him out of something, he wouldn't argue. He'd just nod politely and then do exactly what he wanted."	Chris thinks that he can handle himself and knows what is best for him. He's kind of arrogant.
128	13	"Chris didn't think twice about risking his own life, but he never would have put Buckley in any kind of danger."	Chris has respect for life. He can push his own personal limits but he won't make someone endanger his life for his sake.
129	13	"Like Chris, Carine is energetic and self-assured, a high achiever, quick to state an  opinion."
159	16	"He wanted to prove to himself that he could make it on his own, without anybody else's help."	Alex feels like he has to prove his independence from his family, his father.
166	16	Alex wasn't sure if he wanted to kill animals and was leaning on no.	Alex cares about creatures of the earth and did not consider himself superior to them.
167	16	Alex read something by Thoreau and decided that eating animals was a bad thing.	He is easily persuaded by those that he admires.
170	16	Alex decides not to try to cross the river when he knows it may kill him.	He is able to put his life value in front of pride.
174	17	"He was looking for more adventure and freedom than today's society gives people."
174	17	Chris got rid of his map of Alaska.	He was reckless and didn't think things through.
189	18	"HAPPINESS ONLY WHEN SHARED."	Chris learned to treasure others and the human need for interaction.
199	18	Chris was smiling in his last picture before he died.	Even when he was suffering, he was happy and proud of himself for how far he'd gotten. He followed his dream and didn't look back with regrets.

A Place that Would Change My Life

A journey to Ohio to visit my cousins would forever change my life. At my Great Grandmother's funeral in West Virgina I met 2 of my relatives that live in Ohio that I've never met before. It was a father and his father. The father had 6 children that had been delivered at home. To see how they live would be an experience, but also to see family that I've never met before would be great. The 2 of my relatives that I met were extremely friendly and acted like family even though we had never met before. To go to a place that I don't know and with people that I don't know would change me. To know that there are people that are connected to me and will accept me with open arms would be awesome. Also I don't know much about the area there so seeing a different lifestyle with such a large family would be cool.

Quotes! Quotes! Quotes!

In my humble opinion, I find nothing better than a wonderful quote. At the beginning of every chapter in Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. Many of the quotes are very beautiful or hit on a concept. Please savor the quotes that follow!

I have not tired of the wilderness; rather I enjoy its beauty and the vagrant life I lead, more keenly all the time. I prefer the obscure and difficult trail, leading into the unknown, to any paved highways, and the deep peace of the wild to the discontent bred by cities.

 This is from the last letter that was received from Everett Ruess. It was addressed to his brother, Waldo, November 11, 1934.

Page 87

This practically screams Chris McCandless. Chris loved nature; infact, Chris was dead set on going to Alaska, one of brutalist environments within the United States. Chris did enjoy cities to some degree. He shows this when he lived in Bullhead City and worked in a resteraunt in L.A,. He doesn't mind some civilization, but he truely admires nature. He doesn't get tired of the wilderness throughout his journey. His dream was to explore nature until the point of death.

Another great quote is by Boris Pasternak, who wrote Doctor Zhivago. Page 103

There was no one around, neither family nor people whose judgement you respected. At such time you felt the need of committing yourself to something absolute-life or truth or beauty-of being ruled by it in place of the man-made rules that had been discarded. 

In this quote, the author is saying that when there is nothing that a person can control or respect, they create something worth respecting. In Chris's case, he didn't have quality time with his parents because they were so concerned with financial success. He also had no respect for his father because he had cheated on his second wife with his first wife and tore both families apart. After Chris realized this, he tried to look for something to hold on to and that was nature, pure and beautiful; justice, something to fix all of the problems of the people in the world. Chris relied on helping everyone around him and immersing himself in the beauty of nature.

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. I sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance, an obsequious attendance, but sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the inhospitable board. The hospitality was as cold as the ices.

Henry David Thoreau

Walden, or Life in the Woods

Page 117

The above quote is a further expansion on the one that precedes it. Chris's family had tons of wealth and he had many brothers and sisters. Yet, he did not find peace in the money and any siblings, spare his sister, Carine. Chris was offered a new car and money to go to school from his parents. Despite these offers, Chris didn't feel like his parents cared about what he really wanted to do in life or about what they had done to their family. He found conditional love.

My favorite quote is from The Holy Bible :1 Corinthians 13:4-8.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

This is my favorite quote because it the rubric: the ultimate high bar set in order to reach a perfect relationship. I don't think that Chris would understand this quote. I believe that Chris was very close to many people and loved them, but I don't think he could hold his relationships to these standards. In the novel, Krakauer says that Chris runs from relationships before they go to deep. He has a nomadic heart that never settles and this quote is describing more of a heart that will hold onto those that the persons encountered, Sure, Chris enjoyed the people he met, but not to the point that he would forgive their every wrong. He showed this was true by the realationship he had with his father. 

Into The Wild Questions

Jessica C.

Honors English Purples

Mrs. Zurkowski

February 14, 2011

Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer

Chapter 1

1. 1.      Chris McCandless attended Emory University. After graduating in 1990, he left the money from his well off family on the east coast and set off. Chris had a lot of ideals that weren’t the norm and weren’t accepted. (Author’s Note)
2. 2.      In the Author’s Note,  Jon Krakauer introduced the themes of the bonds of a father an son and a young man’s need for dangerous adventures(Author’s Note).
3. 3.      The quoted material at the beginning of chapter one is a letter that Alex wrote to his friend Wayne. In this letter he tells Wayne, “If this adventure proves fatal and you don’t ever hear from me again I want you to know you’re a great man.” This letter is Alex’s recognition that he may not survive this trip. Contrary to who many critics felt, Alex didn’t think he could survive anything, He knew how this could end.
4. 4.      Alex Supertramp is the alias that Chris McCandless took when he left home. (4)
5. 5.      Jim Gallien is a man that lives in Alaska as an electrician(4). He met McCandless while he was hitchhiking around Fairbanks(4). Gallien then gave him a ride to the Stampede trail and provided him with some supplies(7).
6. 6.      Gallien’s initial assessment of Chris was that he was friendly, but foolish(3 and 5). After the ride, Gallien says, “The more they talked, the less Alex struck Gallien as a nutcase. He was congenial and seemed well educated.”( 5).
7. 7.      Gallien’s first advice to Chris was that he shouldn’t proceed on this journey(5). He also directly told him to wear two pairs of socks in order to keep his feet warm(7).
8. 8.      Gallien offered to McCandless his boots, his lunch, and his phone number in case he ever fell into trouble(7). McCandless then responded with forcing Gallien to take his watch(7).
9. 9.      Gallien thought about alerting the authorities about Alex but thought, “…he’d probably get hungry pretty quick and just walk out to the highway.”(7).
10. 10.  Gallien’s statement that McCandless would get hungry and go out to the highway because that’s what any ‘normal’ person would do. This is ironic because the audience and Gallien know that he is not a normal person. McCandless is hitchhiking across Alaska and has very different ways of thinking from most people. Many people graduate college and go to persue a career. Chris graduated college and gave away his material possessions and life. Many people would act on Gallien’s advice and be scared out their trip. Chris was not only fearless, he was also prepared to answer all of Gallien’s questions without the knowledge that they were going to be asked. Chris is not normal at all and saying that he would do what any normal person would do is ironic. You would think that Gallien would think that this boy would do anything but something normal, but he doesn’t.
1. Chapter 2
11. 11.  Krakauer would include a quote from Jack London for two reasons. For one, on McCandless carved “Jack London is King” at the site of his death(9). Also, many of Jack London’s stories took place in the Yukon and had rough, harsh environments, like the ones that McCandless deals with.
12. 12.  Many readers of Into the Wild may not have been able to go to Alaska, so they are unfamiliar with the environment. By describing the locations, the reader can gather that there are many ridges, wild animals, and a river(10,11).  There also is a mood set by the author. He writes, “About ten miles past the end of the improved road the Stampede Trail crosses the Teklanika River, a fast, icy stream whose waters are opaque with glacial till.”(11). This mood is almost fearful, but reverent to the power of nature.
13. 13.  The most probable cause of Chris McCandless’s death was starvation(14).
1. Chapter 3
14. 14.  Wayne Westerberg was a close friend of Alex’s. Wayne harvested grain for Coors and employed Alex for some jobs(16-17). Wayne was also sent to jail for selling black boxes to provide people with free cable(19). Until that point, Alex lived with Wayne(18). They had a mutual respect for one another and Alex gave Westerberg his prized copy of War and Peace, he also stayed in contact with Wayne (19).
15. 15.  Most of the people that live in Carthage are on the fringe. Wayne sells illegal devices, and he is used to hiring hitchhikers and inadequate workers (18). The people that pass through the town don’t have a stable life and are drifters. Those without a steady home or job are so common, they have a name. Rubber tramps are vagabond with a vehicle and leather tramps are vagabonds with no means of transportation but walking or hitchhiking (17).
16. 16.  Alex felt connected with the people that he lived and worked with. “The living arrangements were loose and convivial. The four or five inhabitants took turns cooking for one another went drinking together, and chased women together, without success.”(18). The roommates interacted and had a good time in each other’s company and had the same easy-going mentality. Alex felt separated from his family because they weren’t involved in his life. They didn’t even know that Chris donated his money to a charity, when they thought he was spending it on law school (20).
17. 17.  Chris left Carthage because there was no work for him to do and Wayne was in Jail (19).
18. 18.  War and Peace was clearly important to Chris because he left it to his friend (19). Chris didn’t give a lot of gifts, but when he did, he made them of some importance (21). At one point, he decided not to give or receive presents because he thinks that people try to buy respect(21). Chris is leaving his friend with something he treasured, not something he simply bought.
19. 19.  Chris had 7 brother and sisters. One sister, Carine, that he was close to and six half siblings(20). Chris was distanced from his parents. He didn’t write them much or even communicate. When he lived in Atlanta, he didn’t have a telephone which showed that he didn’t care whether or not they wanted to contact him and he didn’t tell them when he left on his journey(22).
20. 20.  Chris didn’t care about commercialism because he didn’t care about titles, getting a new car, or a luxurious house(20-22). Chris liked his old van because it still ran and he liked his simplistic apartment in Atlanta with nothing but a mattress and a table. Many people his age want sports cars and mansions. Material things that are nice. Chris wasn’t caught up in anything but the purpose of the object.
21. 21.  When Chris left Atlanta, he made his alias, Alex Supertramp(23).
1. Chapters 4-5
22. 22.  Chris left society so he could find what he wanted in life. He didn’t like commercialism and in order to find peace and reason to some of his questions in life, he set out to see how he fit into life without any material things.
23. 23.  Jan Burres is a 41 year-old rubber tramp that travels with her boyfriend(30). She let Alex camp with her and her boyfriend for about a week. Jan had a son around Alex’s age, so she cared for him like a mother(30). Alex also helped her man her flea market booths. He was held accountable for the books table and he sold a lot of Jack London books for her(44). He would relax with her and tease her(45).
24. 24.  Chris attempted to row his canoes from the Colorado River to the Gulf of California(32). He ran into a lot of trouble along the way. He hit a swamp, dams, canals, and dead ends. When he reached his destination, he continued canoeing until he broke an oar in the ocean and decided to give up the canoe(36).
25. 25.  Chris has a strong voice and writes in third person. “he screams and beats his canoe with oar. The oar breaks. Alex has one spare oar. He calms himself. If loses second oar is dead.”(36). From this excerpt, it is obvious to see that he is level headed and real. He lost his cool for a moment but when he realizes what he’s done and that his future rests in the hand of his temper, he calms down.
26. 26.  Chris says that, “Vegas will not be the end of his story.” (37).He has determined that even though he has been facing malnutrition and has nearly nothing, he will get what he needs and he will be happy. He also says that you must live life to the fullest(37).
27. 27.  Chris led a fairly normal life. He worked at a McDonald’s and lived in a trailer that he didn’t necessarily pay for(39,42).
28. 28.  The Slabs was a gathering of “the retired, the exiled, the destitute, the perpetually unemployed.” in an old navy air-base(43). Here second hand and common flea market type things were sold. The characters here are misfits and people that are trying to escape thing(37). This creates an odd, eccentric crowd with corks and charms that is unique and memorable.
29. 29.  Jan recalls that Chris was many things. He was smart and interested in classical literature and he was good at selling it too(43).  He was social when he was comfortable, and he could play the electric organ and sing very well(45).
30. 30.  Jan thinks that Chris can handle himself in Alaska. She says that he figured everything so far and he could tackle another place as well(46).
1. Chapters 6-7
31. 31.  Ron Franz mailed Jon Krakauer a pen requesting the magazine regarding Chris McCandless’s death(48). Franz had lost his family and then discovered a habit of taking in troubled kids(50). Franz picked up Alex hitchhiking and started taking care of him as much as Alex would allow him. Krakauer suggests that Franz took the relationship much more seriously than Chris did. He says that Chris, ‘flitted out of their lives before anything was expected of him.’(55). Chris walked away from their relationship and occasionally wrote Franz and asked for rides. When Franz heard that Chris was dead, he became an atheist after being a strong Christain(60).
32. 32.  Anza-Borrego is a Desert State Park in California(48).
33. 33.  Ron Franz lost his wife and only son in a car accident while he had been serving overseas. His son was about to graduate medical school(50).
34. 34.  Franz felt very strongly about Chris. Krakauer says “the affection he[Franz] felt was genuine, intense, and unalloyed.”(55). He asked Alex to be his adopted grandson in order to carry on his generation(55).
35. 35.  Franz taught Chris how to work with leather(51).
36. 36.  After telling of Chris and Franz’s separation, Krakauer explains that Alex was afraid of relationships that required anything expected of his. “—relieved that he had again evaded the impending threat of human intimacy, of friendship, and all the messy emotional baggage that comes with it.”(55). He is implying that Chris fears demanding relationships that cause him to stay with that person, glued to them, afraid to leave them.
37. 37.  Chris sent Franz a letter from Carthage saying that Franz needed to leave the comfort and security of his life. Chris insisted this by saying that every day he returned to this security looking for happiness but he still felt the same way every day(56-57). Franz thought highly enough of Chris that he took his advice. He moved out of his apartment, stored his material things, and moved out into bajada with a Duravan(58).
38. 38.  Franz learned of Chris’s death from a Mississippi and Native American Hitchhiker that he had given a ride to(60).  Franz took this news hard. He returned to drinking and became an atheist(60).
39. 39.  At the beginning of chapter seven Westerberg was annoyed because he was short a few hands in the shop. They had been expecting Alex back to help out but he didn’t come because he had died(62).
40. 40.  The author thinks that Chris’s father was a control freak and Alex was very independent(64). Carine and Alex were very close. Alex confided in her and told her of his plans to elude his parents(64).
1. Chapters 8-9
41. 41.  Gene Rossellini was searching for answers just as Alex was. Gene didn’t really care about discovering nature. He had a desire to answer his question and he went to find the answer. Could people survive without modern technology(74)? Alex seeks answers to philosophy related questions. There was a connection between their need for answers.
42. 42.  John Waterman was included in the story because he was similar to Alex. He had issues with his family, he enjoyed playing music, he was ambitious, and he held himself to high standards(76-79). Waterman was ambitious because when he tried to climb a mountain and failed 3 times. Every time he failed, he made it harder for himself but he tried again. Both men were extremests and held themselves to a high moral standard. Krakauer was trying to show that Alex was just short of Waterman’s mark of insanity.
43. 43.  McCunn, like Chris, was a dreamer. He wanted to go out into the wild and he thought he could handle himself. The little details were their downfalls. McCunn was asking around about the supplies he needed but when all he had to do was arrange a date to be picked up, he forgot and died(83). Chris thought he was prepared with the materials he had. He went to several stores and worked many jobs to pay for his supplies. He could have survived if he hadn’t eaten a certain berry.
44. 44.  Everett Ruess was a lot like Chris in his love for nature. Everett attended college an left because he was unsatisfied, just like Chris(90). He then set out for adventures across Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico(90). He wrote home to his family and friends about his love for nature and how he didn’t feel like anyone could connect with him on that matter(91).  He took several different names and so did Chris.
45. 45.  Ken Sleigh thought that the boys were similar because they both liked to be alone but they also needed to have friends and companionship(96).

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