Final Summative: Planning...

"Look deeply into your life and you will find that its filled with Archetypes"

Possible thesis: Your life may seem boring and unclear at first glance, but its actually one big ongoing archetypal journey, filled with other archetypes along the way. Recognising these archetypes may make your view of life change very fast...   

The Narrative essay: Now why do I think this type of essay would be the best choice for effectively communicate my idea about the book? well i thought to my self, "what better way to prove my thesis then to tell a story as an example on how your average every day life is an archetypal journey, filled with other archetypal symbols." The story would be my life... Filled with the boring, uninteresting and meaningless events, but then as I tell the story it will become clear that this events were the archetypes. 

The Concept map: For those visual learners... and just incase the narrative gets confusing, it would become clearer in the concept map.

Brian storming:

- summarises average childhood of mine until 12 where the archetypal journey started for me (one to two paragraphs) 

- change of atmosphere, from playful story to unknown 

- progressive character personality change

- new characters begin to appear 

- other/old characters disappear without them reappearing

Journey outline:

1. origin
2. the Journey (begining)- Philosopher's insanity
3. the mentors
4. the depression (middle)
5. the incline
6. the goddess (near end)
7. the present (end)

      

"Into Thin Air" The last summit

I will say that this novel would of not been as inserting if I didn't have to analyse it with an archetypal literary theory, which I found brought the most insight from the text. Although we did divide the novels into three sections, looking back at Into thin Air as a whole, I realised all of it would of been easily analysed with archetypal literary theory.

Now why did this literary theory brought the most insight? Well to understand Krakauer reasoning and ambition for mountain climbing, not just him but other characters which suffered to accomplish the summit and even the ones who died climbing Mount.Everest, you would have look deeper past the text. That's what Archetypal criticism did when used to analyse the text to find the major archetypal symbols. The mountain seemed to be an obvious one, as an archetypal symbol meaning ambition, becoming closer to greater power and accomplishment, it had a large roll being the main focus of this novel as it is about climbing the biggest mountain in the world. Although the mountain was the main focus of Krakauer, my analysis showed that there was also the archetypal Journey, Krakauer compared to the "Hero" in the archetypal Journey as he discovers the "secrets" of the mountain and goes through a life changing "realisation".

I didn't make any connections in my second blog to my life experience, so ill try to make it in this one. Okey, so I haven't climbed Mount.Everest or any mountain in that matter, so I can't compare my life with Krakauer's. But when it comes to archetypal symbols I have realised one thing, that we will all at some point in our lives go through this "Journey." The life changing perspective sort of Journey, the archetypal kind of Journey, not saying I had mine, but seven years ago something that I can't explain clicked in my head, something that changed the way I view my everyday life. So not all archetypal Journey have to be physical like Krakauer's it could also be mental like mine.

Now these are questions I had as I read through this novel, what pushed these climbers so hard? the need, the want to accomplish greater then themselves, even if that meant dying? Was it really worth it at the end? Krakauer's had a description of being so exhausted to the point where he didn't even care...            

            

"Into Thin Air" Postcolonial Literary theory/ Section #3

looking at the final section of the novel through a Postcolonial literary criticism it is clear that the Sherpas show colonial oppression, their identities have been commercialised, and cultural identities taken away.

The effect that post colonialism had on Sherpas became obvious in this section, they were seen by the climbers as immortals to the mountain and were sometimes forced to do dangerous tasks that they did not want to do. Oppressed by their own image seen by the climbers Sherpas were also forced to climb with more equipment than others, despite their nature conditioning to the mountain, the physical labour was still more than they were used to, they were also forced to climb up and down the mountain several times, more then they could handle. This oppression would make them ignorant of there own mortality and usually would make them think that they themselves were immortals to the mountain, this would lead Sherpas to doing things that ended their lives.

Their identities were commercialised by colonialism in the early years of the exploration of the Himalayas by the explorers/climbers. This created an identity for them that were not true to their beliefs. They were seen as people of great physical powers to climb great heights without showing signs of exhaustion, but it was this image that slowly kills the population of Sherpas today.

The final sign that post colonialism had an effect on Sherpas was that there cultural identities was taken away. Although, it was not actually stricken from them like other colonisation's of the past, their beliefs were most often ignored by the leaders of their teams, and sometimes made their leaders angry because it would stop the Sherpas from doing tasks. An example would be when a Sherpa had a vision of a ghost visiting him warning him of the climb, this stopped that Sherpa from doing a task needed for the climb the next day.

It is obvious that there are signs of post colonialism on the Sherpas when I read this section of the novel. It showed signs of colonial oppression, their identities commercialised, and cultural identity stricken from them.                        

"Into thin air" Archetypal literary theory/ Section #2

     looking at "Into Thin Air" through an archetypal literary theory, I've realised that the archetypes for section 2 (from chapter 8 to 15) of this novel are the Journey, the mountain and the ice/snow. Although the Journey happens to be very generalised and an actually journey rather then an archetypal journey, there are still some archetypal meaning within the journey that Krakauer takes as he attempts the summit of mount. Everest.

Throughout this section "the Journey" becomes clear for Krakauer. Having to suffer through the physical and mental effort that climbing to such heights demands, he seems to have a clear conscious mind despite the physical and mental condition he's in. Most of his journey is filled with having to witness his inexperienced and experienced team members suffer a lot more then him, with medical conditions from their past now affecting them due to the cold or caused by the high altitude; and having to get news of members dying while climbing. He does reach the summit of mount.Everest before the major storm/blizzard, that got one team lost and kills three members, but his physical conditions doesn't allow for him to enjoy his accomplishment for too long and he's forced to descend only after a few minute of reaching the top. The archetypal meaning of the journey is how the "hero"(main character) changes throughout it. Krakauer goes from wanting to accomplish the summit of mount.Everest to regretting most of all decision he has made. An example of his regrets is when he notices one of his teammate's Weathers who was injured and was waiting for a guide to help him down the mountain, but Weathers dies in the blizzard.

the mountain is an obvious archetypal symbol throughout this novel but its more clear in this section of its meaning. Krakauer and most other climbers are being propelled up the highest mountain in the world solely by their ambition, and it showed when Krakauer reached the summit, he describes his state as slowly dying from lack of oxygen, in other words he was too tired to care of his accomplishment or even acknowledge it.

At last we have the ice/snow, which had a stronger meaning in this section of harshness and death. It was the weather that kept delaying climbers and at the end it was a blizzard that killed climbers.

All together, these Archetypal symbols combine to create a strong meaning and summary of how the journey of the summit of Everest was an emotional and physical beating for Krakauer and will always be for the future climbers of the tallest mountain in the world.  

          

    

                     

"Into Thin Air" inspiring journey/section #1

     Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer has spiked my interest in creative non-fiction. This novel, written in the perspective of Jon Krakauer, so far has described his life journey from a kid inspired by mountaineering to being a casual mountaineer himself through his earlier years. Although he never had the funds to afford to climb mount.Everest he found himself getting the opportunity as a magazine journalist to climb one of the seven natural wonders of the world. The most liked aspect of this specific creative non-fiction novel is that it gives me very descriptive imagery and emotions to make the me have a feel for the atmosphere in specific moments.

      At the first few chapters of this section the story was hard to follow yet entertaining. It began in the middle of the story at the summit of mount.Everest, Krakauer describes the top of the world as a spectacular site, having one foot in China and the other in Nepal, as well as being so exhausted that he couldn't summon up the energy to care(7). He then, in the following chapter(s), goes off track into the history of mountaineering and Everest. This is another aspect I didn't mind about this creative non-fiction, although these "informative sections" came without warning at time, I found it interesting and educational. Here's something i learned: mount.Everest, known by peak XV (fifteen) in 1852, was discovered to be the tallest mountain in the world in 1852 by a computer, a job description at that time, named Radhanath Sikhdar using trigonometry to measure its height(15).

     In the later chapters of this section Krakauer started using chronological order to tell his story. He summarises his childhood as being inspired by mountaineering, which was very close to his family, to his inspiration leading him to mountaineering as an adult. In the rest of the chapters he talks more about the journey to the Himalayas and to mount.Everest, As well as going off track to talk about in details of Sherpas (who are the people that have lived on the Himalayas at high altitudes, giving them the dangerous job as guides), the commercialisation of mount.Everest (which is connected with the  sherpas topic) and the climbers within his team. Krakauer describes the Himalayas as his flight passes by them and recognises other mountains besides Everest like the third highest mountain Kanchenjunga and fifth highest Makalu(32). He goes on descriptively about where he stays, the villages, and the journey just to get to the base of the mountain, as well as the acclimatising that all the climbers need to do.

     The feeling that this novel give me is a mix of adventure at times but more of an educational book about mountain climbing. Although it is interesting, there is only so much of one topic I can take before I lose interest. I can tell by the way Krakauer wrote this novel that he's quite passionate about mountain climbing, simply how detailed it is as well as the extra information to inform the reader more about the topic of mountain climbing tells me this how passionate he is.                            

Here's a question, should grade 12 University level English be a requirement for entry into all university programs?

Well in my opinion I don't see why all university programs would need a grade 12 university level English if the career that the program might lead to wouldn't require such a high level of English skills. Some might probable say that, "well it is university" and that in the general spectrum it requires a higher level of education compared to collage, and yes that is true, but for example, some one taking  programs that mostly consist of high level mathematical education, all of a sudden requires to also have a grade 12 university level English might not get in the program that once again "consist of mostly high level mathematical education" sole based on that