A couple of weekends ago I went and saw Into the Wild which stars Emile Hirsh and was directed by Sean Penn. This movie is an interpretation of the Jon Krakauer novel published in 1996 that tells the story of Chris McCandless's epic journeys across the country until his untimely death in the Alaskan wilderness. McCandless grew up in the wealthy suburb of Annandale, Virginia and later attanded Emory College in Georgia and graduated in 1990. Almost immediatly after graduating from Emory, McCandless abrubtly gave away $24,000 in savings and began traveling across the country. During his travels he went to many places such as Lake Mead, Carthridge, South Dakota and then ended up hiking the Stampede Trail in Alaska. After 112 days in the wilderness McCandless dies from possible poisining or starvation, his body was later recovered by moose hunters.
This story had a profound impact on me and I found myself identifying with McCandless in numerous ways. American culture is so overrun by consumerism and the concept of quantity over quality we are sacrificing our morals, our land and our ability to be individuals. Everything in this day and age is prepackaged and ready for the American people to unquestioninglly eat up, we dress how we are told to, we eat what we are told to and we go where we are told to. I spend more time in my car than anybody i know going up and down the east coast and it discusts me that at any given location you will find EXACTLY the same thing: a Best Buy, a Home Depot, three fast food resteraunts and a TGIFridays. How is it possible for corrporations such as these to have such overwhelming control over their markets to where they can be at every single exit and in every single town across the country. Are people in this country just that content with going out to TGIFridays and eating the the same exact slop served in Lewiston Idaho, Scranton New Jersey or any other random town across the country??? The answer is Yes they are and unfortunatly I am no different, Hell I ate at TGIFridays two nights ago.....
This however, is what makes the story of Chris McCandless so amazing because I for years have had similar feeling as he did about the way things are in this country and the difference is he had the balls to do something about it, something I would never be able to do, sure I do things in my own little way but nothing like what he did. He abandoned everything he knew and set out on an adventure and just because he got unlucky in the end doesnt mean he didnt have one hell of a view of things.
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2 comments:
Joanna Andrusko
I completely understand your attraction to Chris McCandless's story. Your post made me think of how we talked about how primal religions can find the sacred in every day life. I was thinking particularly about clothes and food, how we have no connection to them. We do not know the story about them, how they came to be, and so we do not appreciate them. We in our literate society can rationally count on supplies to meet our demand. We have never experienced a shortage of anything and so we do not appreciate what we have offered to us daily because we scientifically realize that it will be there tomorrow. We do not employ the sacred for our food. The only connection I see with that is those of us who say grace before a meal but even then how many of us are really grateful each day for what we receive? Why wouldn't we receive it, rationale tells us it should be there. When Chris is stalking and killing his own food there is an intimacy. There is no guarantee for food. He sees his food interacting with their young and with nature and realizes what he is taking from nature in order to survive. There's an interesting scene where he is about to shoot a deer but he sees it with her fawn and so he can't. And when he kills the moose and cannot preserve the food he is heartbroken because he knows what he has taken. He is so grateful to this moose for its life and he feels he is cheating it by not preserving every ounce of it. It's a feeling we cannot understand in our current lifestyles.
ahhh i love that movie I cannot tell everyone how highly I recommend that book!!!
Dr. Redick I am emailing you my comments, I wanted to put some of my blogs as responses to other peoples but they don't come up in the search if you enter in my name so I'll email them to you as well!
Joanna Andrusko
I completely understand your attraction to Chris McCandless's story. Your post made me think of how we talked about how primal religions can find the sacred in every day life. I was thinking particularly about clothes and food, how we have no connection to them. We do not know the story about them, how they came to be, and so we do not appreciate them. We in our literate society can rationally count on supplies to meet our demand. We have never experienced a shortage of anything and so we do not appreciate what we have offered to us daily because we scientifically realize that it will be there tomorrow. We do not employ the sacred for our food. The only connection I see with that is those of us who say grace before a meal but even then how many of us are really grateful each day for what we receive? Why wouldn't we receive it, rationale tells us it should be there. When Chris is stalking and killing his own food there is an intimacy. There is no guarantee for food. He sees his food interacting with their young and with nature and realizes what he is taking from nature in order to survive. There's an interesting scene where he is about to shoot a deer but he sees it with her fawn and so he can't. And when he kills the moose and cannot preserve the food he is heartbroken because he knows what he has taken. He is so grateful to this moose for its life and he feels he is cheating it by not preserving every ounce of it. It's a feeling we cannot understand in our current lifestyles.
ahhh i love that movie I cannot tell everyone how highly I recommend that book!!!
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