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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I'm Going to New Orleans!

We've all heard the expression, "I'm going to Disney Land!"; but I would like to go to New Orleans, Louisiana. I would like to go there because of the rich culture. New Orleans is famous for having a grand time at Mardi Gras, cajun food, and jazz clubs. There weather is much warmer than the weather here. Their lowest average for the year is 43 degrees, their high is 91 degrees, and they receive 5 inches of precipitation. Because of their weather, I'd probably have to pack some cool clothes if I were going in the Summer. If I went in the winter I'd probably pack some sweatshirts and jeans. I'd also pack things that I use here at home like a hair dryer, pillows, and my wallet. I would be staying in a hotel because this place is a big city. Lastly, I'd really like to drive to New Orleans, even though it's so far away. The drive would take over a day, but I really like driving around and looking at the places we pass through.

Going to New Orleans, I would be most excited about going to the jazz clubs. Jazz is very popular and a lot of music history took place in that area. I would love to go see some famous musicians playing and enjoying some cajun food while I'm there. There are not a lot of place in my area that have live jazz music and cajun food all in one convinent place. Even though I would be in the same country going to New Orleans, it would feel like a different country.

Information source: http://www.neworleansonline.com/
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Jon Krakauer

Jon Krakauer, the author of Into the Wild. Jon Krakauer grew up in a large family in Oregon. His father took him mountaineering and he enjoyed sports.When he was in college, he took environmental classes and was still involved with mountaineering. He obtained his bachelor's degree and was married by 1980. He spent much of his time outside still, climbing and exploring. He had met his wife while spending weeks isolated from civilization. One of the most influential experiences in his life may have been the climb of Mount Everest, where he lost four of his fellow climbers. 

Jon probably is able to write so well due to his own experience in the wild. 

Information- Info Track

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Into the Wild

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer is a story of a college graduate that abandons his modernized world. His name is Christopher McCandless and upon leaving society he runs into some trouble. He goes into the wild and tries to rough it. After living in Alaska for about 100 days, he discovers that his food supply strongly depends on his knowledge and is much harder than he expects. Tragically, he is discovered dead from eating a poisonous food and lack of good supplies and cleanliness. I'm excited to see the view from his eyes on this experience. 


This summary was paraphrased from the information provided on wikipedia.

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2011!

Welcome to the new year and the 3rd quarter of school! Many exciting things happened last year and the first half of the school year and there is more to come. Last year, the beginning of high school was stressful and I was afraid to speak up to be heard. Since then, school has stayed stressful but I have taught myself how to manage everything. I have learned how to take such a large work load and take it one step at a time rather than all at once. I have also joined chorus. I have wanted to do this since I was little, but I never had a good voice. I still do not, but it sounds nicer than it did before, and it makes me happy. I have made great strides this year and I will continue to make more. In English we are ending A Midsummer Night's Dream. This will be the first Shakespeare play that I have read so finishing it will be a great accomplishment. After we finish that up, we will be reading Into the Wild. This is a true story. I'm curious to see what it is about because when I was in sixth grade we read The Call of the Wild by Jack London, which was excellent, but I always got these titles mixed up. I wonder if they are similar. I shall soon find out.

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The Dolphins, Bono, and CPR

A couple of months ago, I had a dream that my friend Meg and I had gone to the boardwalk at night. This was more like a boardwalk that was on a pier 100 feet above water. My friend and I heard that Bono was down the boardwalk. We left the line that we had been standing in for a ride or something and started our walk down the boardwalk in order to find him. We had our arms linked but if I bumped into her then she would be forced to continue in that direction until I pulled her back. I was unaware that it was up to me to stop her. The first time this happened I pulled her back and the second time I thought she was just being stupid and she then ran off the pier while dragging me along. Needless to say, we were both now in dark waters surrounding the pier. We franticly swam to a low pier that people used to get on boats and such. When we got there, there was a shark cage in the water. We used the cage to stand on. Then a dolphin appeared. I had a bad feeling about the dolphin so I told my friend that we should get out of the water. Then more appeared. “Look! There’s more!” She said. I climbed out of the water and when I turned around to help her out, she was gone. The shark cage had sunk some because the dolphins were standing on it too. I looked out into the dark water and I couldn’t see her. I ran around the miniature piers until I found her. Her limbs had turned flat and lifeless, like a flat hose. I scooped her out of the water and ran clumsily to an upper deck where there was a man fixing his boat. He came over and began to help me. I don’t remember if my friend lived or died. I feel like she lived but I remembered thinking “why hadn’t I done CPR when we were on the lower dock.  We also never go to see Bono.
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Character Sketch Essay

Jessica C.

Honors English Purples

Mrs. Zurkowski

January 14, 2011

Character Sketch

“The Nature of Jade” by Deb Caletti

            “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood/ And sorry I could not travel both”.  Robert Frost wrote this famous poem called “The Road Not Taken”.  The speaker has come to a cross road in his life “And looked down one [road] as far as I could”.  In life, everyone comes to a point where they are presented with two opportunities and they must choose one.  A person can only see so far into the future situation to see where choice will take them.  They will either take a leap of faith or continue in the monotony.   In “The Nature of Jade” by Deb Caletti, Jade chooses to take a leap of faith instead of pleasing everyone else and this makes her a more courageous and independent person.

Jade DeLuna is a senior at Ballard High School.  She deals with problems that many teenagers deal with: tons of homework, stress, relationships, and family problems.  Jade’s problems go deeper because she has an anxiety disorder, a family that is being torn down the middle, and a boyfriend with a baby.  She likes to stay in her comfort zone and this causes her to initially refrain from taking chances and stirring up trouble.  She is a good role model for her brother.  She tries to stay out of trouble, she is in AP classes, and she is there for him whenever things are bad.  Lastly, she enjoys watching elephants.  She lives a few blocks away from the zoo in Seattle and she keeps the live webcam of the elephant enclosure on her computer.  She volunteers at the zoo and that is how she meets her boyfriend, Sebastian.

Jade first sees Sebastian from her webcam with his baby boy Bo.  She constantly thinks about him and checks the webcam hoping to see him on her screen.  One fateful day after volunteering at the zoo, they meet and start dating.  On one of their dates, Jade goes to Sebastian’s houseboat where he lives with his grandmother, Tess, and Bo.  When she arrives, they go fishing and  Jade completely falls in love with Sebastian and his family.  From the moment Jade steps into the houseboat, Tess immediately gets up close and personal.  She takes Jade, Sebastian, and Bo out onto the boat. In the boat, Jade begins to feel anxiety but is relaxed.  She can tell that Tess is just as strong as she is frank.   Even though Tess has never met her, she can tell who Jade is and she has confidence in her.  She makes Jade feel comfortable and she loves the relaxed rhythm around their house.  Jade says, “I was spending as much time as I could over at the houseboat.  Sometimes with Sebastian and Bo, sometimes with Tess and Bo, and sometimes just Bo.” (223). When Jade had spare time she went to see them to escape her life.  Sebastian and his family were a secret that she kept from everyone.  She was in a different world and no one could change that.  She then says, “My anxiety – I sort of stopped noticing I had it.”(223).  When Jade is with Tess, Bo, and Sebastian, she knows that she can get through life because there is something worth holding onto, her life has purpose now, and that purpose is to be there with them.  She also overcame her anxiety, something that had haunted her for years. She had put an end to her fears holding her back.  She leapt into a dangerous zone of uncertainty with her relationship with Sebastian and keeping this relationship unknown to everyone.

Jade likes to help and please others but sometimes she loses sight of which is more important to do and that she has to please herself as well.  Jade’s mother did not want Jade to go to a college out of state because she would miss her.  Her mom knew when she left for college, she would be grown up, and like any other mother, she wanted her little girl to stay little forever.  Jade interoperated it that her mother would not let her go to an out of state college at all.  One day in a session with her psychologist, Abe, Abe said to her, “You were going to consider applying to other schools.  How’d that go?” and Jade replied, “Mom’ll freak if I go out of state.  And it’s expensive.” (43). Jade was so afraid of making her mother angry, she did not want to even consider leaving Washington.  Abe talked her into at least applying to a college out of state.  Jade found her dream college, University of Santa Fe and one afternoon she got an acceptance letter.  Unfortunately, Jade’s mother was unaware of her application and she got to the letter before Jade did.  Jade’s mother was furious.  She found out about Sebastian and then a secret that Sebastian had told Jade, was out in the air.  This secret had been what brought Sebastian to Tess’s house instead of his parent’s.  Jade’s mother took the secret and took the information to the authorities.  Sebastian could be put in jail and have his son taken away.  Jade alerted Sebastian and told him to flee. And he did. She thought she would never see him or Bo or Tess again.  She knew that she could do nothing about what had happened so she sadly continued the cookie-cutter life she was in.  She started at the University of Washington for a while, until one day she got a call from Sebastian announcing that they would be moving to Santa Fe.  Jade knew at that moment that she had to go to college there.  “It is a coincidence. A big coincidence. Maybe big enough that you could call it a sign.”(284). She told her mother, and her mom said, “Jade, you need to go.”(284). Jade still was seeking some approval from her mother but at the same time, she knew that she could finally leave her home.  She had learned a balance of pleasing others but making herself happy at the same time. She had also learned to have faith in her mother to see past her selfish love of Jade and do what was best for her.

Jade’s family was dysfunctional.  Her father worked and came home and retreated to the basement.  Jade says, “He stays in the basement all evening, working on his train set, something he’s been building for a couple of years now,… If he goes downstairs, you don’t bother him, or rather, it’s just pointless to try.” (28). Jade’s mom is the epitome of a stay at home mom.  She helps the PTA and does the cooking, cleaning, and housework.  Because both of them are so busy, there is not much communication between Mr. and Mrs. DeLuna.  Jade’s mother was caught cheating on Mr. DeLuna one day.  There was a fight between her parents when Jade’s dad first found out.  Then there was a lot of silence that Oliver compared to a “Narnia” book where it was “Always winter but never Christmas” (242).  Jade’s father moved out of the house and one day Jade comes home to see Oliver and her mom in the backyard with all of Oliver’s old sports equipment hanging from trees.  Oliver had been forced by his father to play sports and now that he was gone, Oliver got rid of the past.  Jade learned she did not have to hang onto the past; she was free of that and could move on; she had a weight lifted off her shoulders.  By Oliver’s refusal to let the horrible past, make his future terrible, Jade learned that her future was in her own hands, not in the hands of her past.

By the end of the story, Jade has learned how to handle her anxiety, her past, and how to make herself happy while caring for others.  She learned how to live a pleasant life.  After she started spending time with Sebastian and his family, she says, “During that time, I had stopped feeling the way I had for a long while – like a hamster on one of those wheels…I had always felt like I was being chased…Now I wasn’t looking over my shoulder or trying to see the future, living for some other time.  It was just now.”(227-228). Jade also learns to manage her happiness when her parents were fighting.  Her and her brother left while they were fighting and got breakfast (166). They made light out of a bad situation and spent time together. Jade has grown from experience and become stronger and able to change and perceive situations differently so she can be happy as well as others.

She grew in a relationship with her mother.  Jade had no trust in her mother.  She did not think twice about keeping Sebastian a secret from her mother, and she did not think twice about lying about it either.  When Jade finally did tell her mom, she reported Sebastian; but Jade still had a bit of hope in her mother, and she told her about Sebastian moving to Santa Fe, and Jade’s mom told her to go there. Jade could trust her. She learned from that moment that a bit of courage and a leap of faith could take her a long way.

Throughout “The Nature of Jade” by Deb Caletti, Jade is transformed because she learns how to live a life that is more meaningful and happier than a constant, ‘hamster on a wheel’ life. Deb Caletti was trying to tell the reader that life is boring and frustrating if you does not challenge the monotony and take chances.  Through her experiences with her family and Sebastian and his family, she has seen that going through the motions of real life will not hold a relationship together.  Sebastian’s family lives in the moment and they are a close family. Jade’s family runs through life in a blur; and they have fallen apart.  The moral of this story is to find the balance in life so that you can be happy and make those around you happy.  As Robert Frost would say, ‘choose the road less traveled by’, and challenge the monotony.

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