Rhetorical Analysis Of Into The Wild

Chris McCandless was a person who every parent would dream of having. He majored in many subjects and graduated with his high honors, but you wouldn't think expect his next step after graduation. In April of 1992, he packed up his bags, abandoned everything he had, and gave the rest of his savings to charity, to go on a journey to Mt. McKinley to start his new life. The story, “Into the Wild” was powerful how Jon Krakauer style of writing made Chris McCandless’s Adventures seem real and even pop out of books to the readers. Krakauer uses many stylistic devices/techniques in order to reveal his tone about Chris McCandless. Krakauer may be writing indifferent about McCandless, but overall stayed to his tone. He made Chris McCandless bold and brave, he would not show a side of him that was weak and useless, and determine his well beings by fate. Krakauer foreshows many of Chris’s actions through other people's quotes. For example, a character in the book, Gail Borah explains, “I
noticed he was crying. That frightened me. He wasn’t planning on being gone all that long; I figured he wouldn’t have been crying unless he intended to take some big risks and knew he might not be coming back. That’s when I started having a bad feeling that we wouldn’t ever see Alex again” (Krakauer, 68).During the course of the book, Krakauer writes the book in a way where we question McCandless’s Mortality. He puts us in frustration asking ourselves, why would Chris do such an adventure so hazardous, that the outcome of his survival is low? From this we now are expecting something life-threatening to happen to Chris at many moments.
We begin to see a little bit of Krakauer’s voice thought out the book. Even though Krakauer doesn’t write much about emotion, we begin to actually see the emotions he has for McCandless. He writes many anaphoras about him, one including saying, “His face was horribly emaciated, almost skeletal. But if he pitted himself in those last difficult hours and-because was so young, because he was alone, because his body has betrayed him, because his will have let him down…” (199). Krakauer comes down a conclusion. He makes this quote as an anaphora to show how much disparity and the feeling he is starting to develop for the main character.
Krakauer uses epigraphs in the beginning of each chapter.
The reasoning behind why he added these epigraphs is to give us a preview and set the mood on what to expect in the upcoming chapter. Some these quotes reflect the well-being of Chris or his lifestyle. In Chapter 3, he opens up with a quote. The first quote comes from “Family Happiness” By Leo Tolstoy saying “I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and dancer and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love…” This quote opens up a little bit about the Tone of how Chris’s personality is. He shows that Chris is a person to take on chances and do adventures out of his comfort zone, instead of living a peaceful life. Krakauer adds an epilogue of “The call of the wild” written by Jack London saying “The dominant Primordial beast was strong in Buck and under the fierce conditions of trail and life is grew and grew…” (38). He uses this quote to show that Chris is beginning to show responsibilities for his
life
McCandless didn’t want to live an ordinary life; he lived a life that was a reckless Alaskan adventure that took place in the parts of the United States and woods. Jon Krakauer demonstrated a relationship between man vs. nature, to solve his life problems and escape society to be in peace. In a way, we can sense that Krakauer is telling an adventure of his own when he was an adventure and curious type, as he was a boy/teen while growing up. His ideals developing his character was the key, he took his story behind many levels and turning it into a well-written story.