Jacqueline May
English Composition 1
June 6 2015
Grizzly Man and Man on Wire
Philippe Petit in
Man on Wire and Timothy Treadwell in Grizzly Man both were passionate and fearless about what they did, both passion was death defying as the other.
However, they manifested different fates. These two men reveal some similarities and differences about their passions, while Philippe is narcissistic and confident, Timothy was delusional and insecure. At first glance, Philippe and Timothy both were very adventurous and passionate about something, even though the two were in a dangerous environment. Philippe was a self taught high wire artist, he found his passion in tight rope walking as a young boy. He accomplished walking across Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France as well as the Sydney Harbour Bridge in
Sydney, Australia. But he was most determined to walk across the World Trade Center that was in New york while being under construction, since it was the tallest building at the time. Philippe was fearless of the situation, there is a quote on the film that explains how passionate he was about tightrope walking across the World Trade Center. “If I die…what a beautiful death, to die in the exercise of your passion.” In this quote you can clearly see his obsession with tightrope walking, and how courageous he was. Timothy, on the other hand was a bear enthusiast, he was
a animal lover since he was a child. He was passionate and so obsessed that he wanted to become one of them. Like how he stated “If there is a God…God would be very, very pleased with me.
If he could just watch me here and see how much I love the animals, how much I respect them, how much I am one of them.” Timothy lived with and studied these grizzly bears from Katmai
National Park in Alaska for thirteen summers. He was so fearless being around and filming these dangerous and wild bears. Just like Philippe, Timothy was determined