Jon Krakauer, Selections from Into the Wild, "The Alaska Interior" and "The Stampede Trail," and:

• David Abram, "The Ecology of Magic"
• Annie Dillard, "The Wreck of Time"
• Susan Faludi, "The Naked Citadel"
• Jon Gertner, "The Futile Pursuit of Happiness"
• Azar Nafisi, "Selections from Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books"
• Tim O'Brien, "How to Tell a True War Story"

For more assignment ideas involving this essay, please visit the Krakauer link-o-mat.

Abram & Krakauer: Shamanism and the Excursion into the Wild

In Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer attempts "to make sense of [Chris] McCandless's life and death, yet his essence remains slippery, vague, elusive." For this paper, I want you to discuss how Abram's notion of the shaman helps to make sense of McCandless's story.

You may want to consider some of the following questions. As always, this is not a checklist of things to include in your paper, but rather a list of possible jumping-off points to help you get started towards a thesis of your own.

1. Did McCandless see himself as a shaman-like figure? Does Krakauer? Do you?
2. Does it make sense to see Krakauer himself, rather than McCandless, as a shaman?
3. How would Abram regard McCandless's actions?
4. Would Krakauer be as impressed with Abram's adventures as he is with McCandless's?
5. Does anything in Abram's essay help to account for the harshness of McCandless's critics?
6. Does McCandless's fate prove anything about the problems with the Western attitude to nature that Abram describes?

Work with the readings from Abram and Krakauer only--we're done with Pollan and Heim (for the time being)!

Craig Eliason, Fall 2000

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Krakauer & Dillard: The Significance of Death

Jon Krakauer tells us that Chris McCandless died in the Alaskan wilderness. What is the significance of that death? After all, as Annie Dillard quotes murderer Ted Bundy, "there are so many people" (194).

Krakauer tries "to make sense of McCandless's . . . death, yet his essence remains slippery, vague, elusive" (439). Dillard asks, "How can an individual count?" (195) For this paper, I would like to discuss what makes a human death significant or insignificant. As always, your paper should be built around your own argument about this topic as it emerges from your consideration of the readings. Thus three perspectives on how a death can be meaningful or meaningless -- Krakauer's, Dillard's, and your own -- should be put into dialogue in your paper.

Circle or underline your thesis in both your rough draft and final paper. This should be one to two sentences long and should appear on the first page.

Before you turn your paper in, make sure all of the following are true:

1. My essay analyzes the readings rather than merely summarizing them.
2. I have included effective and correct uses of quotation in every paragraph.
3. I have avoided repeating grammatical errors I have made in previous essays.
4. Each paragraph meets the paragraph checklist.
5. I have presented and argued a thesis.

Craig Eliason, Fall 2000

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Krakauer & Faludi: Defining Identity

In "The Naked Citadel," Susan Faludi sets out to study how young men are turned into soldiers at a military academy. They surrender willingly their personal identities in order to become part of a group dynamic. In Jon Krakauer's “Selections from Into the Wild ,” the author relates how a recent college graduate by the name of Christopher McCandless decides to stop being a part of society in order to become a better individual. McCandless' spiritual journey to the Alaskan Wilderness is his personal quest to “become a man” under his own terms.

What do these two essays suggest regarding how a person's identity is defined and experienced within his or her own lifetime? Is it something we own for ourselves, something that we have no control over, or just something else? What roles do groups and individuals play inside this situation?

Think of the following as a helping hand. Would you argue that McCandless' journey is consistent with the Citadel's efforts to create a certain kind of man? What role does “choice” plays? Take a risk and create a working project using these two essays. Be specific and show me what you can do.

Angel Soto, Fall 2005

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Krakauer & Gertner: Individuals and Adventures

What draws individuals to undertake grand personal adventures? Take your own position on this question, considering the issues raised in Gertner's and Krakauer's essays. Show how Gertner's article confirms, complicates, or contradicts Krakauer's reflections. And what are the implications of Chris McCandless's story for the argument represented in Gertner's article? The objective of this assignment is to make connections between the two essays. Do not simply compare or contrast them; discuss the authors in relation to one another.

Some additional thoughts and questions that you may choose to address in your answer:

•  Was McCandless's behavior rational? In what ways? If not, why did he do it? What might Gertner and his researchers say about McCandless's motives?

•  Taking McCandless as an example but speaking generally, what is the appeal of the natural world? What does it represent in the imagination of those who seek it, and what power does it hold for them?

•  Consider what elements of McCandless's fantasies and desires are pervasive in American culture.

•  What does the specifically American nature of McCandless's quest have to do with the “pursuit of happiness” as Gertner understands it?

Tim Cassedy, Fall 2005

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Krakauer & Nafisi: The Nature of Freedom

Chris McCandless tried to find freedom by seeking solitude. Azar Nafisi and her students try to find freedom by meeting as a group. Does Nafisi understand something about freedom that McCandless missed? Or is it the other way around? Do their understandings of freedom—if they are indeed different—complement each other in any way?

Geoff Kurtz, Fall 2005

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Krakauer & O'Brien: Truth?

Both Jon Krakauer and Tim O’Brien, in the assigned readings, stress the importance of trying to arrive at the truth of what happened to their central characters. In “Selections from Into the Wild,” Krakauer does a great deal of investigation in his attempt to determine the truth about why Chris McCandless felt the need to escape into the Alaskan wilderness, and why he died in the endeavor. Similarly, although “How to Tell a True War Story,” is actually a work of fiction, Tim O’Brien stresses repeatedly that he is seeking to arrive at the truth about what happened to him and his fellow soldiers during the Viet Nam War.

How do you define and understand the “truth”, in light of the truth that both Krakauer and O’Brien are trying to arrive at in their work? Does it mean the same thing to you as it does to either or both authors? Do you feel that one of them is more successful than the other in his attempt to arrive at the truth? Why or why not?

Mary-Jane Oltarzewski, Fall 2005

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