into the wild chapter 14 thesis

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Into the Wild - Chapter 14, The Stikine Ice Cap Summary & Analysis

Chapter 14, The Stikine Ice Cap Summary and Analysis

The quotes preceding Chapter 14 discuss the intense euphoria of mountain climbing. Krakauer addresses the fatalistic, melodramatic tone of McCandless's final postcard to Wayne Westerberg. The postcard has caused many people to believe McCandless intended to die in Alaska, but Krakauer believes his death was an unplanned accident. His insight into McCandless's intentions stems from his own youthful experiences. Krakauer describes his younger self as reckless, moody, stubborn and self-centered. Krakauer had a difficult relationship with his father, and he often vacillated between a desire to please his father and a contrasting desire to rebel against him. Krakauer developed an obsession with mountain climbing that lasted a decade. His free hours were devoted to planning and dreaming of new climbing challenges. Krakauer believes that this obsession helped guide him through the confusion of his...

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Chapter 14-15

In Chapter 14, Krakauer recounts his own youthful, reckless adventures in the wilderness. At age twenty-three, Krakauer decided to climb Devils Thumb in Alaska. He describes his younger self as self-absorbed and willful, much like Chris McCandless.

In Chapter 15, Krakauer describes his relationship with his father—a common theme in his analysis of the explorers he meets in this book. Krakauer’s own father was a doctor and hoped his son would embark on a career in medicine as well. We learn that the author’s trip was nerve-wracking and fraught with bad weather. His climb was a success, but hard-won and dangerous. This trip gave Krakauer insight into how lonely he had become.

This is an interesting section because Krakauer inserts his own personal experiences, which is an unusual move. Krakauer shares much in common with Chris McCandless and the other men he has discussed—he was young and willful and also had a strained relationship with his father. What separates Krakauer is that he survived his precarious adventures.

The reader might consider how Krakauer’s experiences shape his telling of this story or his treatment of Chris McCandless. While all authors bring biases to their writing, Krakauer seems intimately connected to McCandless through shared experience. This section is perhaps the most insightful of the book—here, someone who has been as reckless as Chris McCandless offers personal reflections about what led him to take such big risks. Yet the reader should remember that it is speculative to compare McCandless with Krakauer. While Krakauer presents many things the men have in common, he does not spend much time expressing what makes them different.

Chapter 16, 17, 18 & Epilogue

Along the Alaskan Highway, Chris McCandless stopped to bathe and met Gaylord Stuckey. Stuckey initially refused McCandless a ride because it was against company policy. However, after talking for a while, Stuckey became convinced that McCandless was not a typical transient and drove him all the way to Fairbanks. Stuckey bought McCandless a bag of rice at the grocery store, and then left him at the University of Alaska campus, where McCandless wanted to learn about berries.

McCandless found a book on plants at the campus bookstore and found a used gun by searching the classifieds. After McCandless left the campus, he met Jim Gallien, who took him farther.

The author gathers the rest of the information in this chapter about McCandless’s journey from a journal he scribbled in the plant book. Krakauer learns that at some point McCandless fell through the ice, yet seemed unharmed. He also knows McCandless found the bus in which he would later die on May 1, calling it “Magic Bus Day.”

McCandless ate rose hips and berries; he hunted squirrel, spruce grouse, duck, goose, and porcupine. Ironically, the author notes, McCandless was not really in the “wilderness” at all—he was only thirty miles from the highway, sixteen miles from a tourist path patrolled by the National Park Service, and within a six-mile radius of four vacation cabins. After a few months in the wilderness, McCandless decided to return to civilization. However, the landscape in July was much different than it had been in April and McCandless had difficulty getting out.

In Chapter 17, Krakauer revisits the site of McCandless’s death. Unlike McCandless, Krakauer comes with a map and three companions. Krakauer notes that if McCandless had a map, he would have realized it was not impossible to cross the Teklanika River and he might have survived. However, Krakauer still does not understand why McCandless died at the bus.

When Krakauer finds the bus, he finds evidence of McCandless everywhere—pots, feathers he saved, books, writing on the walls. Krakauer considers McCandless in relation to other men to which people have compared him—Sir John Franklin, Henry David Thoreau, John Muir—and concludes that McCandless was different than each of them. McCandless did not view nature as an antagonist; he came into it to explore it but also to explore his own soul.

In Chapter 18 Krakauer considers the demise of Chris McCandless. He notes that on July 30 McCandless wrote in his journal that he was extremely weak and blamed it on pot seed. There is nothing in his journal to suggest he was ill before this entry. By August 19, McCandless was dead. Krakauer deliberates various theories about what happened to Chris. Some think he ate potato seeds, which are mildly toxic; Krakauer says this cannot be the case because Chris would have had to consume many pounds of the seeds to become ill and his pack was too light when Jim Gallien dropped him off for there to have been enough seeds in it. Another theory claims that Chris accidentally consumed the wild sweet pea, mistaking it for the wild potato, which he read about in his plant book. However, Krakauer dismisses this idea because it does not make sense to him that Chris could have successfully distinguished the wild potato from the wild sweet pea for three weeks (as he had) and then suddenly confuse them. After some research, Krakauer concludes that the seeds on the roots of the wild potato, which Chris began eating when the roots became too tough, were poisonous.

The Epilogue recounts Billie and Walt McCandless’s trip to the scene of Chris’s death. The visit takes place ten months after the parents have learned of their son’s fate. Billie and Walt are flown in by helicopter—although, they wanted to hike in as Chris had, but the river was too high.

This section attempts to resolve the mystery of Chris McCandless’s death and of Chris McCandless himself. Krakauer recounts McCandless’s final days and attempts to dispel myths surrounding his death. Krakauer chooses to present McCandless as a complicated but, ultimately, intelligent and sensitive individual. He shows McCandless was not the entirely arrogant and ignorant child that much of the media and Alaskan popular opinion has turned him into. Krakauer shows that McCandless correctly identified an animal that he killed as a moose, while others insisted it was a caribou. Krakauer also posits that McCandless was observant enough to discern the difference between the wild potato and the wild sweet pea. In ending the book with a speculation that McCandless’s demise was the result of a mistake anyone could have made (eating poisonous seeds off nonpoisonous roots) and with McCandless’s devastated parents, Krakauer seeks to inspire sympathy in the reader.

Into the Wild

Jon krakauer, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

When the body of a young male hiker is discovered in Alaska’s Denali National Park, Outside magazine assigns journalist Jon Krakauer to cover the story. The young man turns out to be the runaway son of a well-to-do East Coast family, Christopher (Chris) McCandless , who after graduating from Emory University in May 1990, gave away his savings to charity, abandoned his car, burned all his cash , and hitchhiked across the country “to live off the land” in the Alaskan wilderness.

Five months earlier, on April 28, 1992, Jim Gallien , driving on the outskirts of Fairbanks, Alaska, spots a young hitchhiker and offers him a ride. The young man is Christopher McCandless, but he introduces himself as “ Alex ” and says that he intends to “live off the land for a few months” in Denali National Park. Gallien, noticing that Chris’s backpack is far too light to be carrying enough supplies for an extended camping trip, tries to dissuade from hiking alone into the woods. But Chris refuses Gallien’s advice, so Gallien insists that the young man take his lunch and boots with him. Chris reluctantly accepts these gifts and walks onto the snowy Stampede Trail . Gallien figures that the boy will reemerge out of the forest when he becomes hungry .

Later that year, in September, a trio of moose hunters, a couple from Anchorage and an ATV driver, happen upon an abandoned bus in Denali National Park, where they discover Chris’ decomposing body. Alaska State troopers recover the corpse, taking it to a crime lab, which determines the cause of death to be starvation.

Two months after the discovery of McCandless’ body, Krakauer interviews grain elevator operator Wayne Westerberg , who recounts the day he picked up Chris, (going by “Alex” at the time), on his way back to Carthage, South Dakota. Chris works so hard on Westerberg’s grain elevator crew that Wayne offers him a job. Yet Wayne is arrested for stealing satellite TV codes, forcing Chris to hit the road in search of work.

Going back to October 1990, McCandless’ yellow Datsun is found abandoned in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area. Through his research, Krakauer figures out that after a flash flood dampened the Datsun’s engine, Chris abandoned the malfunctioning car to conceal his predicament from his parents and the authorities.

Chris then hitchhikes throughout the west. Along the way, he camps with drifters Jan Burres and her boyfriend Bob , flips burgers at McDonald’s in Bullhead City, canoes the Colorado River to Mexico, and befriends eighty-one-year-old Ronald Franz .

On March 14, 1992, Chris returns to Carthage to work for Wayne Westerberg, but leaves at the end of the month, having gathered just enough money and supplies to pursue his dream of living out in the Alaskan wilderness.

Hitchhiking north, Chris arrives in Alaska on April 18, 1992 and crosses the Teklanika River onto the Stampede Trail ten days later. Off the Sushana River, Chris discovers an abandoned city bus, where he makes camp. Throughout the summer, Chris hunts and forages, eventually shooting down a moose . Butchering the moose’s messy carcass to preserve its meat fills Chris with regret, but through reading, journaling and self-reflection, McCandless comes to terms with his kill and decides to return to civilization.

However, the thawing summer floodwaters of the Teklanika River prevent Chris from crossing, so he returns to the bus to regroup.

On July 30, Chris frantically writes in his journal that he is very weak and in grave danger, but also mentions potato seeds . Too weak to hunt or gather, McCandless dies soon thereafter, having spent his last days discovering that the greatest happinesses in life must be shared with others.

Investigating the potato seeds further, Krakauer theorizes that McCandless died of swainsonine poisoning after consuming wild potato seeds laced with a toxic mold.

Having solved the mystery of McCandless’s death, Krakauer accompanies Chris’ parents’, Walt and Billie , to pay their respects at the bus where Chris died. Though comforted by the surrounding landscape’s beauty, Walt and Billie leave still nursing heavy hearts.

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Into the Wild: Krakauer's Reflection Chapter 14

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Questions and Answers

Why does jon krakauer relate his own experiences in chapter 14.

To show that he understands Chris because he had a similar attitude and outlook on life as a young man.

What challenge did Krakauer set for himself?

To climb a mountain called Devil's Thumb, alone.

What happened when Krakauer almost reached the top of Devil's Thumb?

He ran out of supplies and had to abandon his effort.

What accident happens to Krakauer while he is in his tent contemplating another attempt at climbing the Thumb?

<p>He smokes a cigar and almost burns down his tent.</p> Signup and view all the answers

Who taught Jon Krakauer to climb?

<p>His father.</p> Signup and view all the answers

How is Krakauer parallel to McCandless?

<p>Both men decided to venture out, alone, into the wilds of Alaska at relatively young ages and share similar issues with their fathers.</p> Signup and view all the answers

What does the word 'barren' mean?

<p>Being empty</p> Signup and view all the answers

What does the word 'loitering' mean?

<p>To linger aimlessly or as if aimless in or about a place</p> Signup and view all the answers

What does the word 'abate' mean?

<p>To reduce in amount, degree, intensity; to lessen</p> Signup and view all the answers

What does the word 'recumbent' mean?

<p>Lying down</p> Signup and view all the answers

What does the word 'abyss' mean?

<p>A deep immeasurable space</p> Signup and view all the answers

What does the word 'insurrection' mean?

<p>An act of rebellion</p> Signup and view all the answers

What does the word 'malevolent' mean?

<p>Wishing to do evil</p> Signup and view all the answers

What does the word 'calamitous' mean?

<p>Disastrous</p> Signup and view all the answers

Study Notes

Krakauer's personal reflection.

• Jon Krakauer shares personal experiences in Chapter 14 to connect with Chris McCandless' mindset and youthful ideals.
• He undertook a personal challenge to climb Devil's Thumb, reflecting his adventurous spirit similar to McCandless.

Climbing Devil's Thumb

• While nearing the summit of Devil's Thumb, Krakauer ran out of supplies, forcing him to abandon his ascent.
• During a moment of contemplation in his tent, he accidentally nearly set it ablaze while smoking a cigar, highlighting the risks involved in his adventure.

Relationship with Climbing

• Krakauer's father taught him how to climb, establishing a familial bond linked to his passion for the outdoors.

Parallels Between Krakauer and McCandless

• Both Krakauer and McCandless ventured alone into the Alaskan wilderness at young ages, expressing a shared desire for exploration.
• Their strained relationships with their fathers created a sense of kinship; McCandless distanced himself from his father, rejecting financial support, while Krakauer acknowledges a similar emotional disconnect with his own father.

Vocabulary Terms

• Barren: Describes a state of emptiness or lack.
• Loitering: The act of lingering aimlessly in a place without purpose.
• Abate: Refers to a reduction in amount, degree, or intensity.
• Recumbent: Indicates a position of lying down.
• Abyss: A term for a deep, immeasurable space, often connoting vast emptiness.
• Insurrection: Describes a rebellion or uprising against authority.
• Malevolent: Expresses a wish to cause harm or evil.
• Calamitous: Pertains to something disastrous or causing great harm.

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Explore Jon Krakauer's personal reflections in Chapter 14 of 'Into the Wild' as he shares his experiences climbing Devil's Thumb. Discover the parallels he draws between himself and Chris McCandless, highlighting themes of adventure, familial bonds, and youthful ideals in the Alaskan wilderness.

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Into the Wild

1. What what mountain did 23-year-old Krakauer want to climb? Where is it located?

2. How did Krakauer get to Petersburg?

3. What did Krakauer make in anticipation of the hazard of crevasses he might encounter on the glacier?

4. How did he get his supplies to the Stikine Ice Cap? How long does he plan to be there?

5. What kind of climbing is he doing?

6. What happens at the end of his first attempt to climb the Devil’s Thumb?

1) At twenty-three, he plans on an especially dangerous climb in Alaska, the Devils Thumb, and determines that he will go it alone.

2) He travels on a work boat.

4) His supplies are dropped by plane.

6) Bad weather stops the climb, and he has to abort the climb.

3)He has sex.

5)Free solo climping.

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