Precise authors make lingual picks to make certain effects. They want to hold their readers react in a certain manner. Travel back through the text and analyze Krakauer’s usage of words. sentences. and paragraphs. and take note as to how effectual a author he is.
Analyzing Chapters 8–10
Paragraph
In the first portion of Chapter 8. Krakauer quotes Alaskans who had sentiments about McCandless and his decease.
1. Why does Krakauer mention these letters? How does mentioning them add to or take away from the text?
2. Choose one of these letters. and respond to it. explicating the grade to which you agree or disagree.
Tone
Krakauer inserts himself into the narrative in Chapter 8.
3. Does this give him more credibleness?
4. Make you happen this annoyance? Why or why non?
Analyzing Chapters 11–13
A few pages into Chapter 13. Krakauer describes McCandless’s sister’s behaviour when she was told about her brother’s decease.
5. Why does he utilize the word “keening” alternatively of shouting?
6. What are the indications and intensions of this word? What is its history?
Sentences
Reread aloud the penultimate paragraph in Chapter 13. where Krakauer strongly describes Billie’s heartache.
7. Paraphrase the paragraph and simplify it in your ain words.
8. What makes Krakauer’s description ( quoted below ) powerful? “It is all she can make to coerce herself to analyze the fuzzed snapshots. As she surveies the images. she breaks down from clip to clip. crying as merely a female parent who has outlived a kid can cry. bewraying a sense of loss so immense and irreparable that the head baulk at taking its step.
“Such mourning. witnessed at close scope. makes even the most facile apologies for bad activities pealing asinine and hollow. ”
Analyzing Chapters 14 and 15
Wordss
Krakauer uses proficient vocabulary related to mountain mounting in these two chapters. Investigate the significance proficient words you don’t cognize. What is the consequence of these words on the reader?
Sum uping and Reacting
Chapters 1-7 describe McCandless’s journey and decease. Chapters 8-15 attempt to
put McCandless’s life in a larger context by comparing him to other people: other roamers. his household. and the writer of the book. Look over your notes and notes and reply the undermentioned inquiries. Write your replies in your notebook:
1. How does McCandless comparison with the other roamers Krakauer describes? In what ways is McCandless similar? In what ways is he different? Do we understand McCandless better after doing these comparings?
2. Krakauer and others have speculated that McCandless was estranged from his household because of his relationship with his male parent. What was his household life like? Does it explicate his ulterior behaviour?
3. Krakauer clearly feels a strong connexion to McCandless. Do you believe they were really similar? Why or why non? In what ways is this book as much about Krakauer as it is about McCandless?
4. Taking your notes and your replies to the above inquiries into history. compose a short paragraph replying the undermentioned inquiry: Who was Chris McCandless?
Thinking Critically
Rhetorical entreaties are the recognized ways in which we persuade or reason a instance. The undermentioned inquiries will travel you through more traditional rhetorical entreaties. By concentrating on entreaties to the author. to emotion. and to logic. you will be able to detect how Krakauer has persuaded us and how you can utilize these techniques to carry others when you write or speak.
Questions about Logic ( Logos )
1. Krakauer summarizes the response to his article by stating. “The predominating Alaska wisdom held that McCandless was merely one more moony half-cocked cub who went into the state anticipating to happen replies to all his jobs and alternatively found merely mosquitos and a alone death” ( 72 ) . Has Krakauer made the instance that the predominating Alaska wisdom is incorrect? Why or why non?
2. At the terminal of Chapter 9. Krakauer describes Irish monastics known as the papar who sought out lonely topographic points so much that they left Iceland for Greenland when some Norsemans showed up because they thought that it had become excessively crowded. even though the land was about uninhabited. Krakauer writes. “Reading of these monastics. one can non assist thought of Everett Reuss and Chris McCandless” ( 97 ) . Krakauer implies that there is some sort of similarity between Reuss. McCandless. and the papar. but alternatively of doing a specific connexion. he merely says “one can non assist thought of. ” Is this a good statement? Why or why non?
3. Krakauer argues in Chapter 14 that McCandless’s decease was unplanned and was a awful accident ( 134 ) . Does the book so far support that place? Do you hold with Krakauer? Why or why non?
4. Look for other claims that Krakauer makes that might be weak or unsupported. What are they?
Questions about the Writer ( Ethos )
5. Chapters 14 and 15 describe Krakauer’s successful effort when he was 23 old ages old to mount the “Devil’s Thumb. ” a mountain in Alaska. He besides describes what he thinks are analogues between McCandless and himself. Make these chapters increase his credibleness for composing this book. or do they sabotage his credibleness by doing it seem like he has his ain docket and is non nonsubjective?
Questions about Emotions ( Pathos )
6. Chapters 11-13 are about McCandless’s relationships with his household. Do any of these descriptions cause an emotional reaction in the reader? If so. what is it about the descriptions that causes this connexion? Is it the words? Is it that we identify with the household state of affairss? Do these effects make the book more powerful? Explain your reply.
7. Chapters 14-15 describe the author’s actions and his emotional and psychological province as he climbs the mountain. For illustration. when he by chance burns a large hole in his collapsible shelter. which really belongs to his male parent. he is more disquieted about his father’s reaction than the cold. What are some other inside informations that have an emotional impact on the readers? How make these impact you as the reader?
Reading ( Chapters 16-18. Plus Epilogue )
Reading for Understanding: First Reading
As you read this subdivision of the text. maintain your notes. inquiries. and observations in your Into the Wild notebook. Continue to maintain path of the literary citations that Krakauer uses in his epigraphs. Because you are analyzing McCandless’s personality to detect why he made the determinations he did. go on to maintain a log of McCandless’s personality traits.
Reading Chapters 16–18: Into the Alaskan Wild
1. After a long roundabout way. Krakauer brings us back to the scene of McCandless’s decease. What does Krakauer discourse in these chapters that he did non discourse in the old chapters? Why did he detain showing this information?
2. Krakauer provides a batch of citations from McCandless’s diary in these chapters. What is McCandless speaking about? Why did Krakauer include these choices?
3. Krakauer quotes one of McCandless’s friends. who said that McCandless “was born into the incorrect century. He was looking for more escapade and freedom than today’s society gives people” ( 174 ) . Do you believe this is true?
Reading the Epilogue: Grief
4. What was your initial sense of McCandless’s mental status compared to what you think now? Have you changed your head?
5. What was your reaction to his parents as they visited the coach?
Sing the Structure of the Text
Maping out the organisational construction of the text helps us to understand the content itself.
Sketching Chapters 16–18
1. In Chapter 16. Krakauer gives a sum-up of the last few months of McCandless’s life. Do you believe Krakauer admires McCandless or non? Mention your grounds.
2. In Chapter 17. Krakauer does non get at the coach until after about four pages. In those first pages. he gives us the inside informations of the equipment he carries. the flow of the river. and the others with him. Is this necessary? What does it add? What does it take away?
3. Krakauer says that McCandless had a sort of “idiosyncratic logic. ” Explain Krakauer’s significance and the extent to which you agree or disagree with him.
Sketching the Epilogue
This portion of the book is really short.
4. What is the consequence of holding an epilogue that focuses wholly on the parents’ return to the coach? Does it supply closing?
Annotating and Questioning the Text
Our first reading of a book gives us the narrative line. the major struggles. and a sense of what the writer intends. The 2nd ( or third ) reading provides richer analyses and a deeper apprehension of the text.
In the author’s notes. Krakauer provides a usher to our reading—especially to our subsequent reading of Into the Wild.
In the “Author’s Note” at the beginning of the book. Krakauer introduces the complexness of Chris McCandless. His words imply the undermentioned four inquiries. which we have been sing throughout the book:
1. Should we look up to McCandless for his bravery and baronial thoughts?
2. Was he a foolhardy imbecile?
3. Was he crazy?
4. Was he an chesty and stupid narcist?
Make fringy notes as you reread the text. When you respond to the chapter inquiries. mention the text. if necessary. where you find grounds for your judgements. At this point in your reading. hold your replies to these inquiries changed in any manner?
Annotating Chapters 16–18
5. List the assorted misreckonings and errors McCandless made.
6. Toward the terminal of Chapter 16. Krakauer tells us that McCandless read Walden. You may desire to take a expression at Thoreau’s text and figure out what Chris found most interesting in Thoreau’s treatment of nutrient.
7. Have you of all time fasted? Do you cognize anyone who has? Make some research on fasting and study to the category what you find or write a short study.
Annotating the Epilogue
The traditional definition of an epilogue is that it is a reasoning portion of a literary work.
8. Is Into the Wild a “literary work” ? Why or why non?
9. Is the last paragraph of the book an effectual stoping to the book? Why or why non?
Analyzing Stylistic Choices
Analyzing Stylistic Choices helps you see the lingual and rhetorical picks authors make to inform or convert readers.
Precise authors make lingual picks to make certain effects because they want their readers to respond in a certain manner. Travel back through the text. and analyze Krakauer’s usage of words. sentences. and paragraphs. Then make up one’s mind how effectual his authorship is.
Analyzing Chapters 16–18
Tone
Read aloud the last paragraph in Chapter 18.
1. How does Krakauer cognize that McCandless “was at peace. serene as a monastic gone to God” ? Explain.
2. Does Krakauer have the right to deduce from the exposure that McCandless had the repose of a monastic?
3. What is an alternate reading of the exposure?
Analyzing the Epilogue
Read aloud the last paragraph of the book.
4. Is the linguistic communication literary? Why or why non? What is its consequence on you?
Thinking Critically
Rhetorical entreaties are the recognized ways in which we persuade or reason a instance. The undermentioned inquiries will see the traditional rhetorical entreaties. By concentrating on the entreaty to logic. to the author. and to emotion. you will understand further how Krakauer has persuaded us and how you can utilize these techniques to carry others when you write or speak.
Questions about Logic ( Logos )
1. In Chapter 16. Krakauer says that McCandless “seemed to hold moved beyond his demand to asseverate so adamantly his liberty. his demand to divide himself from his parents. Possibly he was prepared to forgive their imperfectnesss ; possibly he was even prepared to forgive some of his ain. McCandless seemed ready. possibly. to travel place. ” Do you hold with Krakauer’s appraisal?
2. Look at McCandless’s response to several transitions in Tolstoy’s “Family Happiness” toward the terminal of Chapter 16:
He was right in stating that the lone certain felicity in life is to populate for others. . . I have lived through much. and now
I think I have found what is needed for felicity. A quiet privy life in the state. with the possibility of being utile to people to whom it is easy to make good. and who are non accustomed to hold it done to them ; so work which one hopes may be of some usage ; so remainder. nature. books. music. love for one’s neighbor—such is my thought of felicity. And so. on top of all that. you for a mate. and kids. perhaps—what more can the bosom of a adult male desire. ( 169 )
Does this bespeak a alteration in McCandless? Was he ready to “go home” ?
3. Krakauer says that in his original article. he “reported with great certainty that H. mackenzii. the wild sweet pea. killed the boy” ( 192 ) . He now feels he was incorrect. What grounds does he hold for his new place?
4. Does Krakauer turn out his hypothesis that McCandless’s decease was an unplanned accident?
Questions about the Writer ( Ethos )
5. What is your feeling of Krakauer as a individual and a author at this point? What are some of the inside informations that give you this feeling?
Questions about Emotions ( Pathos )
6. Make this piece affect you emotionally? Which parts?
Sum uping and Reacting
In Chapter 18. Krakauer reports that some cabins stocked with nutrient and exigency gear were located about three hours upriver from the coach where McCandless died. However. after McCandless had been found dead. a wildlife life scientist in the country discovered that the cabins had been vandalized. He said.
I’m a bear technician. so I know what bear harm looks like. This looked like person had gone at the cabins with a claw cock and bashed everything in sight. From the size of the giant willowherb turning up through mattresses that had been tossed outside. it was clear that the hooliganism had occurred many hebdomads earlier. ( 196 )
Some people blamed McCandless. stating that he was angry that civilisation had intruded into his wilderness. Others said that there was no grounds that McCandless had even walked that manner. Sing everything you know about McCandless—his journey. his character. his ideas—do you think that he was capable of junking these cabins? After reading this book. make you cognize McCandless good plenty to cognize whether or non he would make this? Write a paragraph in your notebook about your ideas.
Reflecting on Your Reading Procedure
1. There is still so much unknown about Chris McCandless and his journey. What do you desire to larn following?
2. What reading schemes did you usage or learn in this faculty? Which strategies will you utilize in reading other texts? How will these schemes apply in other categories?
3. In what ways has your ability to read and discourse texts like this one improved?
