Question 35: Chapter 8

In the beginning of Chapter 8, Krakauer mentions a number of responses to the article that he wrote about Chris in Outside Magazine. I want you to read the following quotes, some are from the book and some taken from the magazine.  Choose ONE quote that you agree with and ONE quote that you want to argue with. In a different document, cite the quote and your explanation for agreeing/arguing with each (5-6 sentences each). In terms of your responses, I am really looking for quality and depth.

Quotes from Krakauer’s Outside Magazine article about Chris McCandless:

“Alex is a nut in my book. The author describes a man who has given away a small
fortune, forsaken a loving family, abandoned his car, watch and map and burned the last
of his money before traipsing of into the ‘wilderness’ west of Healy.”
- resident of Healy, Alaska

“Personally I see nothing positive at all about Chris McCandless’s lifestyle or wilderness
doctrine. Entering the wilderness purposefully ill-prepared, and surviving a near-death
experience does not make you a better human, it makes you damn lucky.”
-resident of Healy, Alaska

“Krakauer is a kook if he doesn’t think Chris ‘Alexander Supertramp’ McCandless was a
kook.”
- resident of North Pole, Alaska

“Over the past 15 years, I’ve run into several McCandless types out in the country. Same story: idealistic, energetic, young guys who overestimated themselves, underestimated the country, and ended up in trouble. McCandless was hardly unique; there’s quite few of these guys handing around the state, so much alike that they’re almost a collective cliché. The only difference is that McCandless ended up dead, with the story of his dumbassedness splashed across the media…(Jack London got it right in “To Build A Fire.” McCandless is, finally, must a pale 20th- century burlesque of London’s protagonist, who freezes because he ignore advice and commits big-time hubris)…His ignorance, which could have been cured by a USGS quadrant and a Boy Scout manual, is what killed him. And while I feel for his parents, I have no sympathy for him. Such willful ignorance…amounts to disrespect for the land, and paradoxically demonstrates the same sort of arrogance that resulted in the Exxon Valdez spill—just another case of underprepared, overconfident men bumbling around out there and screwing up because they lacked the requisite humility. It’s all a matter of degree.McCandless’s contrived asceticism and a pseudoliterary stance…”
--resident of Ambler, Alaska—Inupiat village north of the Arctic Circle

“It should not be denied…that being footloose has always exhilarated us. It is associated in our minds with escape from history and oppression and law and irksome obligations,with absolute freedom, and the road has always led west.”
resident of Healy, Alaska

“It is true that many creative people fail to make mature personal relationships, and some are extremely isolated. It is also true that, in some instances, trauma, in the shape of early separation or bereavement, has steered the potentially creative person toward developing aspects of his personality which can find fulfillment in comparative isolation. But this does not mean that solitary, creative pursuits are themselves
pathological…Avoidance behavior is a response designed to protect the infant from behavioural disorganization. It we transfer this concept to adult life, we can see that an avoidant infant might very well develop into a person whose principal need was to find some kind of meaning and order in life which was not entirely or even chiefly, dependent upon interpersonal relationships.”
- Anthony Storr

DUE Thursday. March 3rd 11:59pm