PAPER Topics

Start of Term Paper
Beautiful Blueberries Christopher McCandless' last journal entry before dying of starvation in the Alaska bush was simply the words "Beautiful Blueberries". Over the previous two years he bought a secondhand canoe on impulse and paddled to Mexi ....

Middle of Term Paper
... one more dreamy half-caulked greenhorn who went into the country expecting to find answers to all his problems and instead found only mosquitoes and a lonely death". Some people blamed Krakauer, in the magazine article that preceded the book, for glorifying "a foolish, pointless death". But the beauty of Krakauer's writing is that he doesn't glorify Chris McCandless' life or even try to hide his personal weaknesses. Instead, that which becomes evident is a vivid portrait of McCandless' journeys and an examination of why people are attracted to high-risk activities. Krakauer begins the book with Chris McCandless hiking into the Alaskan wi ...