Final Reflection

Into The Wild is a riveting book which brought me as close as possible with a character so detached from society, his distance from traditional culture gave me such curiosity. Though I didn’t favor the format of the writing, the first chapter reveals the outcome of the book without the character being aware of the outcome, therefor ruining that desire to uncover the outcome. Thus illustrating situational irony. Chris McCandless wrote his journal entries in third person omniscient demonstrating a sense of isolation or detachment from himself or society as a whole. In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, the characters speak in third person displaying a loss of self-identity, thus exhibiting an effect of dehumanization: “Ten days and nights of freight trains and hitchhiking bring him to the great white north. No longer to be poisoned by civilization he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become lost in the wild” (163). Yet when Chris McCandless realizes the severity of his predicament, when he feels that sense of fear, that natural feeling of mankind he begins speaking in first person: “S.O.S. I need your help! I am injured! I am all alone, this is no joke. In the name of god, please remain to save me…” (198). This idea of dehumanization, depriving a person of their human attributes is evident throughout both memoirs.