Jon Krakaeur as a Credible

Narrator?
By Jasmine Patel

Experience
The only source of knowledge is experience.
- Albert Einstein
Positive or negative
Types of experience
First hand
Second hand
Third hand
Jon Krakauer?

Background similarities between

McCandless and Krakauer
But I believe we were similarly affected by the skewed
relationships we had with our fathers(155).
Force driving them into the wild

Krakauers father was ambitious to the extreme, and

like Walt McCandless, his aspirations extended to his
progeny(147).
Pressure enforced by their fathers

Introduced to their escape from the world

Similar philosophies between Krakauer

and McCandless
But at the age of twenty-three, personal mortality-the
idea of my own death-was still largely outside my
conceptual grasp (151).
And I suspect we had a similar intensity, a similar
heedlessness, a similar agitation of the soul (155).
Repetition- credibility

In my case-and, I believe, in the case of Chris

McCandless- that was a very different thing from
wanting to die (156).
I was stirred by the dark mystery of mortality. I couldnt
resist stealing up to the edge of doom and peering over
the brink (155-156).
Metaphor

Krakauers positive bias towards

McCandless
As a young man, I was unlike McCandless in many
important regards; most notably, I possessed neither his
intellect nor his lofty ideals(155).
I wont claim to be an impartial biographer.
McCandlesss strange tale struck a personal note that
made a dispassionate rendering of the tragedy
possible (authors note).
I interrupt McCandlesss story with fragments of a
narrative drawn from my own youth. I do so in the hope
that my experiences will throw some oblique light on the
enigma of Chris McCandless (authors note).

Krakauers Personal Narrative

Why include it?
Logos
If he could do it, so could McCandless.
Both were sane when going on their adventure. Not suicidal
Pathos
Included own feelings to help relate to McCandlesss feelings
while on his adventure
Use certain words to show the mood/tone
I could all to easily picture the smug expressions of
condolence Id receive from those whod been certain of my
failure from the get-go(146).
Like McCandless, figures of male authority aroused me in
a confusing medley of corked fury and hunger to please
(134).
Ethos
Mountaineer
Devils thumb experience

Krakauers Personal Narrative

(Continued)
Constantly compares himself to McCandless
I was a twenty-three, a year younger than Chris
McCandless when he walked into the Alaska
bush(135).
When I decided to go to Alaska that April, like
Chris McCandless, I was a raw youth who mistook
passion for insight and acted according to an
obscure, gap-ridden logic (155).

Impact on Reader
Credible author- krakauer
Experience
Reliable or not reliable
McCandless
Sympathy
Solves his own problems
He found the answer to his own problems althought it was to late
Added to the story
Krakaeurs narrative added to the story to show how quick we are to
judge
The fact that I survived my Alaska adventure and McCandless did
not survive his was largely a matter of chance; had I not returned
from the Stikine Ice Cap in 1977, people would have been quick to
say of me-as they now say of him- that I had a death wish (155).

Conclusion
Krakauer uses his personal narrative to
change our views of Chris McCandless
Death wishsolace
About to turn backnature turns agaisnt him
Credibledepends on if you have
experienced it as well