Into the Wild
Jon Krakauer,
American postmodernism (genre)
•
http://www.amazon.com/JonKrakauer/e/B000AQ8WPY
•
http://www.randomhouse.com/features/krakauer/
author.html
Periods of Literary History
or, when did American literature begin to become
profound enough to compete with Europeans?
http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/Periods
_Lit_History.pdf
“Not I, nor anyone else can travel
that road for you.
You must travel it by yourself.
It is not far. It is within reach.
Perhaps you have been on it since
you were born, and did not know.
Perhaps it is everywhere - on
water and land”
-Whitman from Leaves of Grass
Setting: both time and place
POV: 1,2,3, may vary
• ITW set in late 20th
century United
States
• Point of view
traverses between 1st
(more personable, an
American tradition)
and 3rd (more
formal, structured)
• Only use 2nd when
you are giving
directions!
http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com/fil
es/storyphotos/DENA
Mount McKinley, Alaska
•
http://www.nps.g
ov/dena/index.ht
m
•
http://www.brita
nnica.com/EBch
ecked/topic/3549
58/MountMcKinley
Jack London, CM’s inspiration
Full text, “To Build A Fire”:
http://www.jacklondons.net/
buildafire.html
Study guide/ analysis:
http://www.gradesaver.com/
to-build-a-fire/studyguide/section1/
Jack London:
http://london.sonoma.edu/
http://www.pencilrevolution.com/wp
-content/uploads/2013/02/7-710_jack3.jpg
Life in the Alaskan wilderness
Grizzly Man trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
gWycuaWJFCM
“Renowned nonfiction
director Werner Herzog
chronicles the tragic and
untimely death of
outdoorsman Timothy
Treadwell, who devoted his
life to studying grizzly bears
living in the Alaskan
wilderness -- only to have
one of them maul him to
death.”
http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie
/70024093?strkid=400205198_0_0
&trkid=222336&movieid=700240
93
http://www.junglekey.fr/images/17_300dpi_jki2
d3d3Lmxpb25zZ2F0ZXB1YmxpY2l0eS5jb20v
ZXBrL2dyaXp6bHkvaW1hZ2Vz.jpg
#1 rule of being an outdoorsman:
always tell a friend where you will be
127 Hours
http://www.youtube.c
om/watch?v=OlhLO
WTnVoQ
Famous last words:
“I can do everything
on my own.” –Aron
Ralson
Nature: “no”
W.B. Yeats “Second Coming”
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Hunting and eating game
http://i194. /albums/z268/mikekozak/Moose_Pic2.jpg
moose, left
caribou, right
What weighs 67 lbs?
-an Irish setter
-15 bags of sugar
-75 footballs
-7 large bags of
potatoes
-7 aluminum step
ladders
-14 bottles of twoliter sodas
http://www.bigdogbreeds101.com
The Odyssey of Homer
-Greek bard or storyteller
from 800 BC who sang of
Odysseys, the great warrior
of the Trojan War, who
wandered for ten years in
the Mediterranean
http://www.mythweb.com/
odyssey/background_s.htm
l
Interactive map:
http://www.classics.upenn.
edu/myth/php/homer/index
.php?page=odymap
http://www.complit.illinois.edu/CWL241/picture/
map%20web/Odyssey.jpg
Homer’s Odysseus
http://www.co
mplit.illinois.
edu/CWL241/
picture/map%
20web/Odyss
ey.jpg
Close reading means looking up the
references:
• “The Datson, of
course, belonged
to Chris
McCandless.
After piloting it
west out of
Atlanta, he’d
arrived in Lake
Mead National
Recreation Area
on July 6th, riding
a giddy
Emersonian high”
(27).
From Emerson’s Nature:
“To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as
much from his chamber as from society. I am
not solitary whilst I read and write, though
nobody is with me. But if a man would be
alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that
come from those heavenly worlds, will separate
between him and what he touches. One might
think the atmosphere was made transparent
with this design, to give man, in the heavenly
bodies, the perpetual presence of the sublime.
Seen in the streets of cities, how great they are!
If the stars should appear one night in a
thousand years, how would men believe and
adore; and preserve for many generations the
remembrance of the city of God which had
been shown! “ Ch. 1
“That government is best which governs least” - Thoreau
Full text of Civil Disobedience:
http://thoreau.eserver.org/civil1.html
Who should ultimately have the
final say: the individual, the
citizens as a whole, or the
government? Do we (as citizens)
have responsibilities to society?
What are they?
What are the limits of
government should follow in
intruding in our daily lives?
Can the government restrict your
beliefs? Are there beliefs or
actions that the government
should try to alter? Should we be
forced to pay taxes for other
people’s needs?
Flatheadreservation.com
Rhetorical technique: empathy association
• How does Krakauer
encourage the reader
to empathize with
McCandliss? Find
quotes on the
following pages and
discuss how not what
the author does
• 3,33,35,45,46,52,54
http://www.christophermccandless.info/
Once more to the bus..
http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/firstlook/Once-More-to-the-Bus.html
• Tribute to
E.B. White’s
“Once More
to the Lake”
•
http://www.outsideonl
ine.com/outdooradventure/media/film/
I-Want-This-Movie-toGrip-People-in-theHeart.html
Works Cited
• http://www.christophermccandless.info/