Second Posts due Thursday, March 13
Second comments due Tuesday, March 18
It's All About Character
"The sundry men and women who make careers out of scaling the world's highest peaks" (65) must be a group of very strong-willed characters, right? Pick one and write a CCQC about them. Make the claim include a description of their character, then use evidence and quotes from the book to prove your claim. Pile up that evidence so you prove your claim; one quote or factoid does not prove someone's character. A catch: no one can use the same quotes, although you may be talking about the same character.
To comment: pick someone who wrote about a different character than you did. Add more evidence to their character description that either agrees with or disagrees with their claim.
Jon Krakauer is a guy who really wanted to summit Mt Everest, but then, when he accomplished this goal, didn't really care. By the time he reached the top of Everest, he hadn't slept in 57 hours, was starving to death, was running low on oxygen, had seen several climbers fall to their death, and was feeling pretty bad. I don't even know how I would feel. Everyone assumes you will feel excited, pumped and full of adrenaline, but in reality you want to s**t your pants because you are scared and your brain is lacking oxygen. Hence, all that elation disappears and he "couldn't summon the energy to care." I think that people who climb these types of mountains are brave. I would think about doing it, but only with trusted friends.
ReplyDeleteI think Jon Krakauer makes some choices that kind of dumb. I wonder why he would put his body through all of that just to see the peak. Is it just to say, "I climbed the tallest mountain in the world?" Here's a guy with a life and he risked it all for a mountain that he had expressed disdain for in the past. "I was 41, well past my climbing prime, with a graying beard, bad gums and fifteen extra pounds around my midriff. I was married to a woman I loved fiercely - and who loved me back." He didn't really care about climbing that much anymore as he had done all that in his early years and talked about getting it all out of his system. I feel that he was hypnotized to say yes by his old self. He subconsciously said yes and I don't like that he was stuck in that old pattern of thinking. He made the decision, but I hate that he made the decision because he put worry on other people when there was no need to do that.
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