...Drew S**** Professor X ENGL 1 April 2013 Wilderness The meaning of wilderness has changed over time, and today there is a debate surrounding the meaning of wilderness. William Cronon says in “The Trouble with Wilderness”, “As late as the eighteenth century, the most common usage of the word ‘wilderness’ in the English language referred to landscapes that generally carried adjectives far different from the ones they attract today. To be a wilderness then was to be ‘deserted,’ ‘savage,’ ‘desolate,’ ‘barren’—in short, a ‘waste,’ the word’s nearest synonym” (Cronon 165). To most people today wilderness is a place untouched by humans and home to nature and the sublime. William Cronon claims that we should view wilderness as part of us and everything around us. The wilderness is a place unaltered by humans, these places are disappearing and we need to protect them. William Cronon’s “The Trouble with Wilderness” presents an interesting view on what wilderness is. His view is completely different from both the old definition and the current definition. He says, “It is not the things we label as wilderness that are the problem, but rather what we ourselves mean when we use the label” (Cronon 174). Cronon doesn’t believe that the things we currently define as wilderness shouldn’t be called wilderness, but he believes that there is a problem with only recognizing certain places to be wilderness. In his essay Cronon says, “If wild nature is the only thing worth saving, and if our...
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...The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature William Cronon This will seem a heretical claim to many environmentalists, since the idea of wilderness has for decades been a fundamental tenet-indeed, a passionof the environmental movement, especially in the United States. For many Americans wilderness stands as the last remaining place where civilization, that all too human disease, has not fully infected the earth. It is an island in the polluted sea of urban-industrial modernity, the one place we can turn for escape from our own too-muchness. Seen in this way, wilderness presents itself as the best antidote to our human selves, a refuge we must somehow recover if we hope to save the planet. As Henry David Thoreau once famously declared, “In Wildness is the preservation of the World.“’ But is it? The more one knows of its peculiar history, the more one realizes that wilderness is not quite what it seems. Far from being the one place on earth that stands apart from humanity, it is quite profoundly a human creation-indeed, the creation of very particular human cultures at very particular moments in human history. It is not a pristine sanctuary where the last remnant of an untouched, endangered, but still transcendent nature can for at least a little while longer be encountered without the contaminating taint of civilization. Instead, it is a product of that civilization, and could hardly be contaminated by the very stuff of which it is made...
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...Wilderness is for the people, not for the paper. I would like to write a paper that focuses on what the government should do about the wilderness areas in the United States. Based on personal experience, I did a lot of hiking and traveling when I was younger and it was the most beautiful thing I ever experienced. The fact that the government is preserving most of the wilderness is excellent, but even though they are preserving it, they are not saving enough of it. My theory is that the government only cares about making money and the only way i believe that is possible is by profiting from the rich. The rich make there money in there very tall and fancy cooperation buildings. To make those building, contractors must tear down hundreds or even thousands of trees, destroying many homes for our animals. To restore what was lost with all the corporations and their huge parking lots, I believe that any building that is not being used or close buy should be forced to move so that the government can use it to plants more trees. Lately the most precious wilderness are being torn down for logging, mining, oil and gas drilling. “The Grand Canyon National Park has been opened up for development. And all the while, Alaska awaits the next attempt to ruin its pristine wilderness in the search for cheap oil” (Hunt) That is no way to use Americas wilderness. I believe that the people have done enough to try to save the wilderness and that the government should be putting in work. There has...
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...In the essay “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature”, William Cronon argues against the cultural conception of the wilderness. For Cronon, the cultural conception of the wilderness is composed as an untouchable fortress that remains separated and protected from any and all human interactions. Humans, he believes, view themselves isolated from the natural world, however, Cronon emphasizes that wilderness free of human interaction is non-existent. For Millions of years’ human have influenced the wilderness, leaving nothing unaffected or untainted. Cronon argues that by only viewing the simplified constructed version of the wilderness as something apart from our everyday lives in which we must leave untouched; humans...
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...In the short story “The Wilderness” (2013), Elizabeth Tallent argues that opposition is necessary in our lives. Tallent uses the professors life, the professors and students interactions, life and death to support her argument. The authors purpose is to persuade readers to start looking at their own lives in a different way. Tallent’s audience is educated adults. The English professor decided to analyze the way that she interacted with her students and others at school. The professor begins by looking at her herself inwardly. She begins to realize that during her life she made no risks and continued to in a way play it safe. This scenario is seen when the professor is standing completely still in the middle of a roundabout while her students are riding bicycles around her. While she is wearing clothes that are shades of gray, the students are wearing colorful colors. The oppositions between the students and the way that the teacher lived her life is seen here. The professor is still and does not take any risk unlike her students who are carefree and in motion. The professor realized that she just saw her life pass before her eyes and did not have the time to experience life because she spent her time reading and alone. While looking at herself inwardly she begins to realize that she has not changed at all from the time she was a child to now that she is an adult. While she was looking at her life she also analyzed the way that she interacted with the world....
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...Since Baderman Island has opened it had already become a premiere vacation and relaxation destination, but things are just getting started. Of the nearly 1600 acres of the island, only 750 have been developed. That means that there are still over 800 acres of wilderness and development that are still in the works. Of course this doesn’t mean that the entire island will be over-developed. We at Baderman Island have intentionally designed permanent wilderness areas – in addition to the 375 acres of the botanical gardens -- that will be integrated into the master plan of the Island.Here are just a few things that we have in the works: Pepicello Fairways are planning on adding an additional 18 holes of golf on 75 open acres adjacent to the existing golf course. This new range will be designed for those golfers seeking the additional challenge needed to drive up their game. The WIlliam C. Martin Botanical Gardens are growing. Currently the 225 acres of preserved wilderness is home to abundant wildlife, exotics plants, and colorful butterflies. In attempt to better protect the gardens, an additional 150 acre buffer area is being created around the garden. Additionally, the existing walking and hiking trails are being expanded to make for better access for wheelchairs and those guests that request golf cart accessibility. Plans are in the works to expand the Baderman Island Oasis Spa. The modest 50 acres site is being expanded by an additional 25 acres with additional facilities as...
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...Christopher McCandless gave his entire $24,000 savings account to charity and hitchhiked to Alaska to live in the wilderness. Along the way, he encountered a series of characters and changed many lives. After he travels all across the country, Chris finally achieves his goal and settles in the Alaskan wilderness on an abandoned bus where he lives out his dream of living off the land and being completely independent. Jon Krakauer is a non-fiction author who has written five books along with multiple articles. He is also a trained mountaineer and once spent three weeks by himself in the wilderness of Alaska and climbed a new route on the Devils Thumb. Only through patience and hard work could Jon Krakauer collect the data necessary to write out the life of Chris McCandless. Going from state to state and town to town to collect interviews and piece together the long journey that left such an impact in history. Bus 142 was once used as a “boudoir” for a family who loved to camp. They left it behind for shelter for hunters and hikers like Chris. The bus was abandoned on the Stampede trail in the Alaskan wilderness. Chris found the bus in the spring while everything was in bloom and he had plenty to eat. The bus provided a bed to sleep on and a little furnace to keep him warm. Jon Krakauer made bus 142 a key point in Chris’s story. It was his dream home. He had the Alaskan wilderness all to himself and was surrounded by nothing but nature. “ Everywhere but on the north-facing slopes and...
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...Wenjie Hu, TJ Puckett, English 102, 09/19/2013 A Pilgrims of Ultimate Freedom Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer is the true story of Chris Johnson McCandless, a young man who is found dead in the Alaska wilderness, McCandless raised in a wealthy family from Virginia, and he is born talented and smart, who from an early age shows deep intensity, passion, and a strict moral behavior. After graduating from high school, McCandless spent the summer alone on a road trip, during which he discovered his father secretly had a second family. McCandless returns home and starts as a freshman in college, but his anger over this betrayal and his parents’ keeping this secret away from him grows worse and worse over time. By the time that McCandless graduated from college, he drives away without telling anyone where he is going, abandoning the use of his real name along the way. He never contacts his family. Not too long after McCandless abandoned his car in the desert and he begins to hitch hikes around the Northwest, getting jobs everywhere but not staying at a location for long, During this time, he gets to know a few people. In 1992, McCandless hiked into the wilderness, he spent the next sixteen weeks in the magic bus, not seeing a single human being the entire time. He has success for the most parts. However, McCandless probably have eaten some moldy seeds, and the mold contains a poison that caused him to starve to death. He realized that he is going to die, he...
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...Into the Wild Character Analysis Essay Chris McCandless, the main character in Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, is a man with many problem in his life, in which, sets out to find his true self by surrounding himself with nothing but nature in the Alaskan wilderness. In Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer characterizes Christopher Mccandless as foolish and determined. Christopher Mccandless is a guy who sought out nature to find the true meaning of life, but in doing so, it killed him because he was foolish. Chris was going to make the long journey to Alaska by foot, but everyone else knew he would end up needing a ride, but ¨… when they see that [machete]¨(Krakauer, 68), no one's gonna want to. He intended to make his long journey and live off nature...
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...To many people the wilderness has a certain charm as a spotless place of the evils of modern society, a place where one can be free and get in touch with his soul. However, the reality of living in the wilderness. I think Jon Krakauer creates a very interesting and passionate book with Into The Wild. His commitment to Chris’s story seeps through the pages and his own personal connections to the tale adds depth and passion that might of just been lost over time. Jon Krakauer’s Into The Wild provides the reader with the details of Chris Mccandles travels through the wilderness of Alaska, more specifically the Stampede Trail through Denali National Park. The hike itself is dangerous, taking you through two river crossings and muggy conditions...
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...reinvented himself, he wanted the good life, completely letting go by changing and burning all of his money. Making a new beginning, took a chance on what he wanted to do. So he became something for himself, “McCandless walks south through the desert, arriving in the Topock, Arizona, where he buys a second hand canoe. 2. Krakauer titles his book Into The Wild which echoes Jack London’s work, The Call of the Wild. McCandless’s experience demonstrates the “grip wilderness has on the American imagination, the allure high-risk activities hold for young men of a certain mind…” How do you define “the call of the wild?” Does the call still exists in the same form it existed in previous periods in American history? How is the “wild” or the wilderness important to us as a people? What about to you as an individual? The appeal of the nature the wilderness gives people the ability to be free from society. To be able to escape from reality for a little while, to do something you wouldn’t normally do. Naturally need for the wilderness it’s a challenge you want to concur. See like the character was forced into his structured life style...
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...a) Preservation, promoted by John Muir, values the protection of natural wilderness from economic use. Conservation, advocated by Gifford Pinchot, emphasizes the importance of the sustainable use of natural resources (Bulkan, 2016a). Preservation is the concept of forests being a “never failing fountain of wealth and beauty” for everyone to relax and enjoy, not for economic prosperity (Muir, 1901, p.51). This can be achieved by creating protected areas, allowing nature to be uninterrupted and uninfluenced by man (Bulkan, 2016a). Conservation, on the other hand, is the practice of sustainably using forests for development, for the present and future generations (Pinchot, 1910, p. 33). Natural resources are to be efficiently utilized while reducing...
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...Chris Clarke on how Disney's treatment of animals has altered our sense of the wild and cleared the way for environmental decline. As the close of the twentieth century approaches and our world becomes more and more urban our knowledge of nature is increasingly second-hand. Those of us in cities, whose non-human neighbors tend toward rats, pigeons and dandelions, are dependent on the media for our understanding of the natural world – or at least that part of it not adapted to urban life. It is from movies, television and packaged tourism that we derive our sense of nature. For the last half century, it has been Walt Disney and his corporate estate that have provided that sense. In doing so Disney has instilled an appreciation of nature in generations of media consumers. Many environmentalists and animal-rights activists credit Disney with awaking their concern for the environment. But this appreciation has not been delivered in a value-free package. From the outset Disney’s nature films have supported the notion that the natural world’s chief value lies in the profit that industrial society can extract from it. At first this support took the form of simple paeans to the righteousness of logging, mining and urban development. Now, amidst the increasing commodification of everything from tribal myth to basmati rice, the value extracted from nature is the right to define nature. Disney covets that right and will gain it at our peril. Not much besides hindsight distinguishes...
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...Into the Wild In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, a moose hunter found his decomposed body. Christopher McCandless was born in California. He had 6 half-siblings from his father’s earlier marriage. His parents fought a lot and always wanted to divorce. His father had not actually divorced from his first wife. Eventually Chris found this out, and it could have been a factor about his views of society. He envisioned separating from the organized society to go on the road and just live. He dreamed of an “Alaskan Odyssey” where he would live off the land in the Alaskan Wilderness. Christopher graduated from Emory in Atlanta Georgia on May 12, 1990. At school, his teachers noticed him as unusually strong willed. He was always a devoted Christian. He was an athlete, captain of the cross-country team. In 1990, he donated $25,000 given to him for his law degree to a charity to prevent hunger. Near the end of June he burned all the cash in his wallet, ripped his I.D. in half, sold his apartment, and went on the road. His parents sent him many letters, and he told the post office to hold them back. Since he had no phone, his parents did not know what was going...
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...Christopher McCandless was a young man who gave up everything when he decided to embark on a treacherous journey to Alaska. After a year of hitchhiking across the country, he finally arrived at his destination. Due to poor decisions, he eventually succumbed to his death. Many people, such as the Into the Wild author Jon Krakauer, believe that “McCandless wasn’t some feckless slacker, adrift and confused, racked by existential despair. To the contrary: His life hummed with meaning and purpose. But the meaning he wrested from existence lay beyond the comfortable path: McCandless distrusted the value of things that came easily” (184). Even though I do not agree with the methods he used while on this spiritual journey, I do agree with Krakauer’s assertion that he kept hope alive even while close to death, and that his life “hummed with meaning and purpose”. McCandless came from a comfortable upper middle class family. Many people would say that Christopher McCandless had a relatively good life. His parents worked hard to provide him with all the necessary tools to ensure that he had a secure future. When he graduated, his parents were under the impression that he was going to attend law school. Chris had different plans which became evident when he donated all his money to OXFAM, and he disappeared into the wild. He didn’t want to be tied down by the stresses of today’s society; he didn’t want an ordinary life. He felt “emancipated from the stifling world of his parents and peers...
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