Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Into the Wild Author References

Writer’s Name
Books Mentioned By Writer
Favorite Lines in Into the Wild and Pg. #
How they relate to Chris McCandless
Wallace Stegner

The American West as Living Space

Mormon Country
“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.” – Pg.15
Chris would definitely have agreed with Stegner and in fact that is why Chris took to the road. He wanted to escape the strict world of his parents and live his own life.
Anthony Storr
Solitude: A Return To The Self
“If 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 personal relationships.”- Pg.61
This description of adult life of Chris seems to match exactly. Could this be a contributing, or even controlling, factor in his attitude? It’s not entirely impossible.
Theodore Roszak
 
Image from:
In Search of The Miraculous
“It may, after all, be the bad habit of creative talents to invest themselves in pathological extremes that yield remarkable insights but no durable way of life for those who cannot translate their psychic wounds into significant art or thought.”
Chris lived a life on the edge, gaining great insight, yet it was not a possible long-term living style for him. If he had not died in Alaska it is highly probable he would have died in the wild in another location.

No comments:

Post a Comment