Transcript Into the Wild - Dublin City Schools

Into the Wild
By Jon Krakauer
• http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/cha
nnel/videos/denali-national-park/
The Media
• “Death of an Innocent”
– 9,000-word article by Jon Krakauer appeared
in Outside, Jan. 1993
• Into the Wild novel by Jon Krakauer
published 1996
• “The Cult of Chris McCandless”
– article by Matthew Power appeared in Men’s
Journal, Sept. 2007
• Into the Wild film produced 2007
• Note: various other articles have been written in addition to
television interviews and coverage.
The Media
Jon Krakauer
• “Adventure” enthusiast
• Experienced hiker, climber, and writer
– Eiger Dreams
– Into Thin Air
– Under the Banner of Heaven
– editor of the Modern Library Exploration
series
Early
Life
• Born in 1954
• Grew up in Corvallis, Oregon
• Father introduced him to mountaineering as
an 8-year-old
 So he was very passionate about the outdoors from a
very young age.
• Graduated from Hampshire College in 1976
Krakauer:
Post-College
• After college he traveled
around Colorado, Alaska,
& the Pacific Northwest
• Worked primarily as a
carpenter and commercial
salmon fisherman
• Spent all his free time
outdoors
ADVENTURES
• 1977  Traveled alone
to the remote Stikine
Icecap in Southeast
Alaska
 Went three weeks without
encountering another person
 Climbed a new route on an
intimidating peak called the
Devil’s Thumb
ADVENTURES (cont.)
• 1992  Climbed the West
Face of Cerro Torre in the
Patagonian Andes
 A mile-high spike of granite, Cerro
Torre was once considered the most
difficult mountain on earth
• May 1996  Climbed Mt.
Everest
 A snow storm hit during his team’s
descent from the summit, killing 4 of his 5
teammates
 Wrote Into Thin Air about his experience
Other Publications
• Has been published in:
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Outside
Rolling Stone
TIME
The New York Times
National Geographic
Many others…
• #1 New York Times
Bestseller
• 1998 Pulitzer Prize
Chris McCandless
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“Alexander Supertramp”
From an affluent suburb of Washington
D. C./well-to-do family
Emory University alumni (1990)
Two-year “odyssey” from 1990-1992
Decomposed body found in bus
(Stampede Trail, Alaska) in September
1992
American Transcendentalism
“Heaven is under our feet as well as over
our heads.”
Transcendentalism
• A literary movement in the 1830’s that
established a clear “American voice”.
• Emerson first expressed his philosophy in
his essay “Nature”.
• A belief in a higher reality than that
achieved by human reasoning.
• Suggests that every individual is capable
of discovering this higher truth through
intuition.
Transcendentalism
• Unlike Puritans, they saw humans and
nature as possessing an innate goodness.
“In the faces of men and women, I see God”
-Walt Whitman
• Opposed strictness of
established religion.
Transcendentalism: The tenets:
• Believed in living close to
nature/importance of nature. Nature is the
source of truth and inspiration.
• Taught the dignity of manual labor
• Advocated self-trust/ confidence
• Valued individuality/non-conformity/free
thought
• Advocated self-reliance/ simplicity
The First Transcendentalists
• Ralph Waldo Emerson
“What I must do is all that concerns me, not
what people think…”
• Henry David Thoreau
• “I went into the woods because I wished to live
deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life and
see if I could not learn what it has to teach, and not,
when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
• Margaret Fuller
“If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
perhaps it is because he hears a different
drummer. Let him step to the music he hears,
however measured or far away.”