Monday, August 16, 2010
2 Quotations from Into the Wild
Please pick 2 quotations that you think best characterize Christopher McCandless- in whatever personal state, or in whatever part of his journey, he seems to be. Click "comment," list and write all 2 quotations (include parenthetical citation with page number), and include your initials- first name and last- at the end. **If you see the quotation in the previous comment, then you cannot use it.** Thank you!
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"McCandless wasn't some feckless slacker; adrift and confused, racked by existential despair. To the contrary: His life hummed with meaning and purpose. But the meaning he wrested from existence lay beyond the comfortable path: McCandless distrusted the value of things that came easily. He demanded much of himself--more, in the end, than he could deliver" (184).
ReplyDelete"'There was just no talking the guy out of it," Gallien remembers. "He was determined. Real gung ho. The word that comes to mind is excited. He couldn't wait to head out there and get started" (6).
EA
"Once Alex made up his mind about something, there was no changing it. I even offered to buy him a plane ticket to Fairbanks, which would have let him work an extra ten days and still get to Alaska by the end of April, but he said, 'No, I want to hitch north. Flying would be cheating. It would wreck the whole trip' " (67).
ReplyDelete"Chris had so much natural talent, but if you tried to coach him, to polish his skill, to bring out that final ten percent, a wall went up. He resisted instruction of any kind" (111).
MR
"He seemed extremely intelligent," Franz states in an exotic brogue that sounds like a blend of Scottish, Pennsylvania Dutch, and Carolina drawl. "I thought he was too nice a kid to be living by that hot springs with those nudists and drunks and dope smokers" (51).
ReplyDelete"He dined on roots, berries, and seaweed, hunted game with spears and snares, dressed in rags, endured the bitter winters. He seemed to relish the hardship. His home above Hippie Cove was a windowless hovel, which he built without benefit of saw or ax: He'd sped days grinding his way through a log with a sharp stone" (74).
MZ
"McCandless didn't conform particularly well to the bush-casualty stereotype. Although he was rash, untutored in the ways of the backcountry, and incautious to the point of foolhardiness, he wasn't incompetent- he wouldn't have lasted 113 days if he were. And he wasn't a nutcase, he wasn't a sociopath, he wasn't an outcast. McCandless was something else- although precisely what is hard to say. A pilgrim, perhaps" (Krakauer, 85).
ReplyDelete"He was green, he was overestimated his resilience, but he was sufficiently skilled to last for sixteen weeks on little more than his wits and ten pounds of rice. And he was fully aware when he entered the bush that he had given himself a perilously slim margin for error. He knew precisely what was at stake" (Krakauer, 182).
TG
"...he came across a sign warning him that he was trespassing on the U.S. Army's highly restricted Yuma Proving Ground. McCandless was deterred not in the least"(33).
ReplyDelete"His exact words were 'I think I'm going to disappear for a while'"(21).
MW
"Never said much. He'd get moody, wouldn't like to be bothered. Seemed like a kid who was looking for something, looking for something, I just didn't know what it was."(42).
ReplyDelete"Like many people Chris apparently judged artists and close friends by their work, not their life, yet he was temperamentally incapable of extending such lenity to his father"(122).
PM
"In his journal he now wrote, "Disaster... rained in. River look impossible. Lonely, scared." (170)
ReplyDelete"Instead, I felt oppressed by the old man's expectations. It was drilled into me that anything less than winning was failure." (148)
"You are wrong if you think joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living." (Krakauer, 57)
ReplyDelete" 'you don't need to worry about me. I have a college education. I'm not destitute. I'm living like this by choice' " (Krakauer, 51)
MS
Good comments, people! Now, we need to decide whether these quotes are directly or indirectly characterizing Chris. Remember page numbers at the end of quotations, please.
ReplyDelete"McCandless was smallish with the hard, stringy physique of an itinerant laborer. There was something arresting bout the younger's eyes. Dark and emotive, they suggested a trace of exotic blood in his heritage-Greek, maybe, or Chippewa-and conveyed a vulnerability that made Westerberg want to take the kid under his wing." (16).
ReplyDelete"Chris purchased the secondhand yellow Datson when he was a senior in high school in the years since, he'd been in the habit of taking it on extended solo road trips when classes weren't in session..." (19).
CB
"He was right in saying that the only certain happiness in life is to live for others"
ReplyDelete(169)
"I have been thinking more and more that I shall always be a lone wanderer of the wilderness" (91)
I couldn’t find away to post on the site so here are my quetes
ReplyDeleteYou could tell right away that Alex was intelligent" Page 18
"It is hardly unusual for a young man to be drawn to a pursuit considered reckless by his elders" pg 182
Mathew Jellins
Good job, people! Morley, Pefanis, Hassenflu, and Frantz still need to post, but I'll help them out. If you all can help them, then please do. Also, if you all ever have trouble with the blog, then please see the Help Desk in the Library or the A building. Thanks!
ReplyDelete