Use the Transcendentalism quote packet and ideas you got from our seminar discussion to help you formulate a response to ONE of the ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS for Into the Wild.
Post your response UNDER the question you are responding to. You MUST use one of the quotes from the packet to help you develop your response. You should also use relevant details from Into the Wild to develop ideas and connections. LENGTH=approx. 150 words.
***Remember to use the pattern of development as you incorporate the quote in your writing!!
After you post your response, read some of the responses posted by your classmates and reply to 2 others. Your reply can be shorter (about 2 or 3 sentences). IN your reply you can do any of the following:
- relate their ideas to another example from the book or the quote packet
- offer a different perspective
- ask a question about something
- talk about connections or insights that came to you after reading the post
Who is Chris McCandless? Is he a hero trying to live life according to his beliefs? Is he selfish? Is he afraid of commitment? Is a lunatic? Is he an idealist or an idiot? Is he just suicidal?
ReplyDeleteChris McCandless is an outsider to society who is trying to fulfill his lifestyle needs. McCandless is trying the philosophy of Henry David Thoreau. Henry David Thoreau states, "That government is best which governs not all." Thoreau is trying to explain the idea of little to no government control. Chris relates to this quote from how he burns his social security number and I.D, he is fading away from government control. Chris is not afraid of commitment, he has always loved the great outdoors even as a kid and hasn’t followed rules and teachings that are thrown at him. Chris has been committed to his great Alaskan adventure for a while, leaving everything behind by choice. Chris is not a lunatic or an idiot, he is just doing what brings him happiness.
DeleteChris is a free willed person who leaves his family and explores Alaska. Chris is an idealist. He is not suicidal, he just wants to live his life. Chris does try to survive. When he needs money he gets a job, when he needs food or anything else he tries to provide for himself. This questions is similar t the ideas expressed in quote number 3. Quote number 3 talks about men being themselves first, not respect the law, and their only obligation should be to do what they think is right. Chris does what he wants to do. He does not respect laws or listen to laws. He listens to and respects himself.
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DeleteNick, I agree with you because Chris is just trying to live his life. He does not need interference from anyone, especially the law enforcement.
DeleteI agree to sparks because I wrote the same idea. Also he doesn't listen to laws as he burns all of his I.D's.
DeleteI agree with Sparks because I believe that Chris isn't suicidal, he just wants to live on his own without rule. Whatever he thinks he needs he'll get it like money or food but other than that he doesn't like the fact of working.
DeleteNick, I disagree with you in the fact that you say Chris is not afraid of commitment, I think his journey he shows he is scared to get to close to other people such as Ronald Franz. When he asked Chris to adapt his last name he refused. He would always make sure he pushed people away before he got to close due to fear of commitment.
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DeleteSparks, I agree I think Chris just wanted to be somewhere he wouldn't be told what to do or be influenced by a government. When he left he didn't plan on dying in the wild because he just thought it would be a way better lifestyle than living in a normal society because of the freedom he would have.
DeleteNick, I agree with you. Chris had jut wanted to fulfill his dream by going to live in the wild. Also Chris did have commitment in the context that he had kept with his dream ad journey throughout the constant obstacles he had to overcome along the way. I also agree that Thoreau had a major impact on Chris and he had gone to the extreme just to follow Thoreau's philosophy of government and life.
DeleteChris McCandless is a independent, free willed man who doesn't care what people think about him. Chris does what he wants, despite other peoples opinions. Chris is an example of Emerson's quotes about not letting what other people think concern you. Emerson states, "It is easy in the world to live after the worlds opinion...but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude." (Emerson) Chris is constantly told by people that he is crazy and that he shouldn't be doing what hes doing but Chris doesn't give in. He stays independent and follows his dreams of going on his great Alaskan adventure.
DeleteI agree with Sparks because he indeed wasnot suicidal infact he was the complete opposite he aimed high and had a plan after he had gotten out of the wilderness.
DeleteWhat does Krakauer want us to think about him and his choices?
ReplyDeleteWhy would Krakauer think his story needs to be told?
Jon Krakauer is a bias individual who thinks that chris was a big hero. Krakauer leaves his thoughts on what he thinks about Chris and how he manages his choices. Over all The author Jon Krakauer leaves the reader to decide himself what he thinks about chris. Its like he puts all the facts and opinions on the "table" and leaves the reader to depict for themselves what they think about him. He Says tat Chris is an amazing person who struggled with society and left on an adveture to Alaska to live off of the wild. Jon Krakauer wanted this story to be told because Chris is said to believe that he is and inspirational person for that he achieved his goal. Which was to achieve the Great Alaskan Experience.
DeleteWhat is accomplished by Chris's journey? What meaning can we take away from the way he lived his life?
ReplyDeleteBy taking the journey, Chris was able to experience a life that he had been searching for. Chris from the beginning, had been trying to escape the set up of society and experience a life that he could control himself. In quote number 26 by Emerson it explains how a man must be able to go against the generally accepted customs of society. Chris did exactly as Emerson had stated and gone to live and explore a life in which there was not set rules and guidelines. Today it can be taken away from Chris's journey and the way he lived his life, that it is okay to go against the norm, and experience a life changing journey as long as you are prepared for the cruelties that are out in the world and are prepared for a dramatic change in the way of life. Also the idea that some people have different views on life and that there is no way that every person wants to live the same way, is taken away from the way Chris had lived his life.
DeleteI agree with Caroline. People still liked and enjoyed Chris' company even though his ideas and views on life were pretty crazy to them. I think that it can be taken away that its okay to go against the norm and not be a conformist but I wouldn't recommend to do it to the extent that Chris did. But thats what he needed to do and in the end he got what he was looking for, the answer to true happiness.
DeleteWhat does “the wild” represent for Chris? For others? How is nature important in the quest for self-knowledge, independence, freedom, peace, and/or meaning? Why do people seek out nature or "the wild?"
ReplyDeleteFor Chris McCandless “the wild” represents peace and freedom, he thought of it as a place where you do what you want without being told to do like a government would do. He thought it would be a better place to live because in the wild he is not being told what to do but when in reality it is very hard to survive this type of lifestyle. Chris was influenced by many transcendentalist writers, in quote (19) the quote is describing how he would rather live “In the wild” than in a normal society. He thinks living in a normal society you are being sheltered and doing what the government wants you to. Chris thought the same way being against technology and the government just like the transcendentalists he left everything and went into the wild. Nature was important for what Chris and the transcendentalists were trying to achieve because nature is a place where you're alone with your own ideas and no one else's, you are having nobody influencing you. In nature you can live however you want because you're not being told you should and shouldn't do.
DeleteI agree with Sam, this is how Chris saw happiness. He didn't like to be told what to do so it fit him well. He needed that journey to further understand things for himself.
DeleteI agree with both Sam and Emily. I think Chris needed to go on that journey to understand his life and his mind and thoughts even though it did end up killing him. I think by the time that he died he did find what he was looking for, an answer. He realized that true happiness is spent with others. I don't think Chris got peace or freedom from the wild but I think he did get the answer he was looking for from it.
DeleteWhat does it mean to be your own person, to be an individual?
ReplyDeleteQuote 13 from Walden, explains that we are in in this society, always in a rush, that we waste our lives going from place to place. The term "starved before we are hungry" means that we don't have to rush rush rush, that we should relax and take in other things, rather than stress, like nature. Chris McCandless used that idea in that he wanted to be an individual to society, to not have to worry about stress, and constantly being in a rush. Chris tested that theory in going on his trip to Alaska. By going on his trip, he learned that there are other things in this world that others can enjoy, and that people should take time and take it all in and live in the moment, he realized that being his own individual and doing what he wanted, following his own rules and going through life as it happened, didn't let him build up stress, didn't let himself rush into doing anything, and that made him his own person.
DeleteWhat does it mean to live life as an individual?
DeleteTo be an individual it means you need to live your own life and not live in other people's lives. Thoreau states that “a minority is powerless while it conforms to the minority” this means that an individual is not a true individual when it lets the majority conform him. When a person is truly in the minority or is an “individual” they do things their own way and take different paths, but to live like an individual you don't get brought in by the society. You stay on the outside and do things your way instead of doing it the way of the majority. An example of this is when Chris McCandless doesn't like the way society works so he breaks off from it he burns his social security card, money, and birth certificate and heads up to Alaska to not see society and live as an individual with no rule from government. But it's hard to live life as an individual because to not be conformed to society is hard for a lot of people because everyone wants to be in the “crowd” and wants to get along with everyone, but if you're an individual that's not what you do.
To be your own person is do or be what one wishes or in accordance with one's own character rather than as influenced by others.In Quote (4) Thoreau talks about how as in individual you can be whatever you want to be and no one will hold you back
DeleteRC, I disagree with you because you said that when you're an individual you can be whatever you want and no one will hold you back. This isn't true because everyone will try to conform you to society and not let you be your own person so you will eventually conform to the majority.
DeleteKelly, I agree because it relates to the quote I used in the way that we always feel like we have to be doing something instead of sitting back and enjoying things about life. Chris takes advantage of this and does what makes him happy by not always rushing into things and being an individual in society.
DeleteRyan Stewart, I agree with you, it is hard for individuals not to conform with the majority. Chris was an individual, but people like his Dad, who was a majority, tried to get him to conform with society, by trying to get him to go to harvard and have a new car.
DeleteStew, I agree because Chris follows the route of being an individual in his own path. How Chris burns all of his i.d to break off of the majority shows that he wants to be an individual.
DeleteStort I agree because Chris leaves everything behind and tries to live as his own person. He doesn't like being told what to do and tries to be a nonconformist.
DeleteRyan, I agree with you because we can't be an individual by just following others, we have to make our own identity even if it means not following the crowd.
DeleteI agree with Ben and Ryan in that the majority will always try to get the minority to conform. That is why I believe that Chris never got too close to anyone. They couldn't try and make him conform if he distanced himself from them. Thus he was able to remain his own person.
DeleteWhat does it mean to live meaningfully?
ReplyDeleteIn passage 4 Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience explains what it means to live like everybody else. He shows us how we shouldn’t live. In the very beginning of the excerpt he states “...not as men mainly, but as machines…” (Thoreau). What he means by machines is that a society manufactures, and reproduces the same people over and over. Everyone is the same, generation after generation. Nobody's idea are different, they are all programmed to believe the same thing. In today’s society people can’t think for themselves. Thoreau continues to explain how government officials don’t make moral decisions, that they're all made based off of greed, and what keeps the public in line. Lastly, Thoreau talks about the smallest percentage of society. What the government calls “enemies” but they are really reformists, or patriots. They aren’t afraid to voice their beliefs, and thoughts. This exactly what Chris Mccandless is. He isn’t afraid to say what he is thinking, and he didn’t read that in a book. Mccandless was like that even as a kid. Walt Mccandless even said that as a child Chris did what he wanted, you could tell him what to do, but he would do what he wanted anyways. The part that Chris seemed to be influenced more by the book is the mass of men that use their bodies as “machines”. Mccandless had the opportunity to go to Harvard, but he didn’t want to be like everyone else. He wanted to be different. Mccandless craved the need to be himself, he wasn’t going to become a machine. His idea of a meaningful life wasn’t going to school, getting a job and settling down like everyone else. He wasn’t going to let society control who he wanted to be, just like his thoughts.
DeleteThroughout Chris’s journey, it seems quite clear that he is looking for meaning in his life. Chris doesn’t fit in with society's views of what a meaningful life is. While others see a meaningful life as having a nice home, good job, and lots of money, Chris is the exact opposite. He jumps from job to job, without a home, or money, he goes as far as to even burn his own money. While many would think he was crazy, Thoreau would have been able to relate. In one of his quotes he talks about how to live a meaningful life, he says, “In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness” (Thoreau 21). Chris enjoyed reading Thoreau’s writings, and for Chris this one must have ran deep due to the similarities in this quote to the way Chris decided to live his own life. It talks about simplifying one's life much to the way Chris simplifies his own. Chris goes on this journey alone, no money, little food, but for him “solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness” due to the simplicity of his life. This lifestyle is what Chris sees as meaningful similar to what Thoreau believes. It is almost as if Chris bases his new life off this quote, and believes it will create meaning in his life.
DeleteWhat does it mean to live meaningfully?
DeleteAccording to Thoreau’s Walden “This is a delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense, and imbibes delight through every pore”(16). In meaning that the days can be so perfect that you only feel happy. When the quote says a “delicious evening,” it means that the days can be very beautiful in the sunlight, twilight, and moonlight. When Thoreau describes the body as one sense, he is saying that a person feels happy at that time. Finally, when he says “Delight through every pore” it means that happiness is everywhere in that place a person is at. Chris McCandless, had been happy all the way through his journey through Alaska, that he had forgotten about society including his parents and sister. Chris also feels happiness when arriving in Alaska as well as being free and at peace from everyone else in society.
i agree with swagoner because your meaningful life is the way you want to make it meaningful. Chris thought being alone and in the woods and away from the rest of the world is meaningful to him. The meaning of life to chris was to be free
DeleteBenjamin I agree with you when you say he doesn't fit in with society. I like the quote you used and how you connected it when Chris's life. I agree with you when you talked about what was meaningful to him.
DeleteEmily Kate,
DeleteI totally agree with you. A meaningful life means you have a choice on how to live in society and what to do during your lifetime.
I agree with Emily-Kate in that Chris didn't have the same ideal lifestyle as most people did. He wanted to be able to have control over his life and live off a minimum rather than having things handed to him by his parents. If his parents were to help him all the time with everything he did it wouldn't make his life very meaningful so he cut ties with them and attempted to survive without any outside help.
DeleteWhat does it mean to live meaningfully? I believe that to Chris, living a meaningful life meant to always treat others kindly and to never have any regrets. Chris was always treating others kindly, even if he didn't like them very much. He also never let anything stop him from doing what he wanted. If he wanted to do something, he did it. Although at the end of his life he writes that happiness can only be shared, he doesnt regret what he did because he eventually found the (his) answer to what it means to live meaningfully.
DeleteBen, I agree with you.
DeleteI do agree with almost all of these responses but i mostly agree with Ben. I agree with Ben, because when other people think of happiness its physically what they have could make them happy. With Chris its different because he wants whats mentally. He doesn't care about money. When almost every other person does care about money.
DeleteHow does Chris's story relate to the ideas of Transcendentalism that we have been studying?
ReplyDeleteChris’s story relates to the Transcendentalist because Chris shares many of the same views in life that they did. Like when Thoreau wrote about how he didn’t like strong government, Chris shares that same view. He burned his social security card which was a record with the national government of his existence. His story relates to Emerson's quote from Self Reliance where he talks about being a nonconformist. All throughout Chris’s life he has been a nonconformist, he wasn’t the average high school boy. On friday nights instead of going to parties he would go to sketchy parts of DC and help out the homeless. His journey to Alaska is an example of being a nonconformist also. Rarely people just drop everything they have and go on a journey to Alaska. He wanted to be a nonconformist so bad he went to the extreme and left everything including his family and went into the wild.
Deletehis story relates to the writer's thoughts because in every one of these writers storys they always relate it to non conforming and hating the government and the hole story of into the wild really brought that to life and not only did one of his favorite writers say himself “government is best which governs not at all” (Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience) but he acts upon this by burning all his cash and destroying his ID and then goes to live in the wild of the alaskan wilderness for a few months and the eventually died there where Thoreau went to live in the wild in the woods right outside boston for a few days not the real wilderness. with knowing all of this chris is way too resilient to the government and thinks they're the worst thing ever and that they should go away when in reality the government gives us the police and the education system so they really are necessary to run a working society even the least advanced cultures have a form of government regardless on how primitive it may be.
DeleteChris’s story relates to the ideas of Transcendentalists because chris wants to live a meaningful and free life, he doesn't want to be controlled by a government and he wants to do whatever he wants whenever he wants to. Chris thinks that there should be no government involvement in our lives, he agrees with Thoreau in the way. Thoreau says that “I heartily accept the motto, ‘that government is best which governs least;’ and I should like to see it acted upon more rapidly and systematically. “That government is best which governs not at all.” You can see that chris agrees with Thoreau because when chris burns his money on the side of the road and when he cuts up his id cards he's rebelling against the government and their rules, he's also showing that he's his own person and he can do what he wants even if it's against the law or if it's deemed wrong by the government.
DeleteOne reason that Chris ran away from home is because he didn’t agree with the government. The laws that they made and the rights he was given as a person he simply just didn’t agree with. This influenced him to take on an adventure to Alaska where he would live a free life. But could he survive like this? According to Henry David Thoreau, there was no way he could. In quote number 10 (Thoreau) he states that every man lives under the rules of the government, and without them, nobody would survive. When Chris continues on his rule-free journey we eventually find out that Chris dies of starvation. Thoreau’s quote connects perfectly to this book. Chris throughout his journey he struggles with with multiple problems along the way, and throughout his entire journey he wasn’t impacted by the rules of the government at all, and we eventually find out that he dies
DeleteChris McCandless nearly embodies the ideas of transcendentalism that have been set up by Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Chris has the same stubborn way of thinking and idea that a simple life is one without complications set up by other people thus giving him the idea to go into the wild. Ever since Chris was a young boy he had shown these traits. After taking a standard achievement test his teachers determined that he belonged in advanced placement classes yet he didn’t want to be in advanced classes because it meant more work. So Chris went around and “‘attempted to convince the teacher, the principal--anybody who would listen-- that the test results were in error, that he really didn’t belong there’”(107). He was determined to try and get out of the advanced classes and having extra work. The fact that he would go around to ‘anybody’ shows how desperate he was in his failed attempts. This proves that Chris was trying to live a more simple and easy life which connects to the thoughts of Thoreau, one of the transcendentalists. Thoreau wrote an essay about him living in the ‘wild’ and the ideas he creates relates to the train of thought that Chris has. Within Thoreau’s essay he states the idea to “let your affairs be as two or three, not a hundred or a thousand;”(Thoreau). What Thoreau is trying to get across is the idea that we need to prioritize our lives in able to live a more simple life. We can’t obsess over everything that happens in our life and still have an easy lifestyle. This quote relates to Chris majorly in that Chris always looked for the easy way out and never put in the extra effort if it wasn’t needed. So Chris ended up with the transcendentalist train of thought especially within his decision to travel to Alaska for his idea of a simple life.
DeleteWill,
DeleteI agree with your thoughts on Chis, he did leave because he disagreed with the government and the laws that he was ordered to follow by. Throughout his trip, he didn't worry about the government, he just worried about what was happening in the moment.
I agree with Wills statement because even though Chris lives this hard life after he gives up everything and goes to Alaska he still does what he wanted to do and all he wanted to do was have a meaningful life which was what he did in the end.
DeleteDane, I completely agree with you. Chris goes on his journey to live a happy care-free life without any government and destroying his ID and money is a perfect representation of living without government
DeleteChris really understood what it meant to be human. He understood how special it was to be such complex creatures. We see beauty, and we acknowledge emotions, and we live to enjoy, not just survive. In passage 17, Thoreau explains in Walden, that heaven, is here, “under our feet” (Thoreau). He’s trying to show that we need to live in the moment, go along with where life takes us. To see beauty, and that if people would just stop what they’re doing for a second, you could see what life wants you to see. What life has to offer right now is way more important than what needs to get done tomorrow. We see this idea portrayed throughout the length of Chris's journey. In Mccandless’s letter to Ron Franz, he says “If you want to get more out of life, Ron, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such life you will see it’s full meaning and its incredible beauty.” (Krakauer 57). They way Chris lived was different from many others, he saw the true beauty in simplicity, which also came from other readings of Thoreau. He truly believed that living with limited affairs, and no certain destination was how he could truly enjoy heaven on earth.
DeleteI agree with Quins statement Chris doesnt want a goverment because he feels that it has to much say in our lives and he wants it to have less power over him so thats why he burns his money and cut up his id cards
DeleteQuin good job with explaining your point and i agree to the way you related Thoreaus quote to the story about Chris i also like how you end it with a question
DeleteQuote 22 is an example of what is means to live a meaningful life. It starts off by asking why we are always looking to succeed, always wanting something. We always feel like we should be achieving something. We compare ourselves to other people and feel like we need to always keep up with them but that’s not always the case because we’re not all trying to achieve the same thing. We all have different goals and it may take some of us longer to achieve those goals than others. So we all have to do what is meaningful to ourselves as individuals in order to succeed and live a meaningful life. This relates to Chris because he felt like it was necessary to travel around the country and explore new things in order to have meaning in his life. He wasn’t worrying so much about other peoples goals, he was only worried about himself and that is what lead him to achieve his goals and live the way he wanted to.
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DeleteGabby,
DeleteI agree with your interpretation of quote 22, Chris did feel as though traveling around the country and exploring new things helped with experiencing a meaningful life. Also he didn't care about others or their goals, he only focused on himself and focused on having a meaningful life he enjoyed.
Gabby,
DeleteI agree with you on passage 22. I think Chris did find happiness on his journey including his arrival.
I agree with Logan, Chris was a nonconformist, and he went to extremes to show that he was. He didn't want to be like everyone else.
DeleteGabby, I agree with how you had interpreted quote 22. Each and every person has a different meaning of a 'meaningful life' and Chris had saw his journey as the way to make his life meaningful. I also agree with how you said that people often compare themselves with others to see if they have lived a 'meaningful' life.
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