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“Into The Wild,” A Cautionary Tale?
Maybe I’m just paranoid, but ever since I saw the movie Into the Wild, I can’t help but thinking that it serves a kind of dual purpose, half of which is hidden in the eyes of the casual observer.
On the one hand, it purports to be this adventuresome saga of the Young Fool embarking on a life of wonder and freedom. On the other, he ends up dead: starving, poisoned, frozen in an abandoned bus in a great wasteland.
In mythological terms, it follows closely the pattern of many fairy tales as cautionary fables: don’t do such and such because DEATH AWAITS!
A cautionary tale is a traditional story told in folklore, to warn its hearer of a danger. There are three essential parts to a cautionary tale, though they can be introduced in a large variety of ways. First, a taboo or prohibition is stated: some act, location, or thing is said to be dangerous. Then, the narrative itself is told: someone disregarded the warning and performed the forbidden act. Finally, the violator comes to an unpleasant fate, which is frequently related in large and grisly detail.
Much like the highly propagandized “social guidance films” of the 1950’s onwards, a cautionary tale uses an exciting storyline to reinforce cultural norms by showing the consequences of what happens when you veer away from those norms.
The catch to all of this, of course, is that they are right. If you stray off the path and head into the wilderness, you really do die: either figuratively in terms of your old life and the image other people hold of you, or in actuality. The thing that cautionary fables never point out though is that everyone dies and danger lurks around every corner. It’s only the myth of civil society itself which protects us mentally from those dangers through elaborate conceptual and theatrical artifices.
January 15th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Brilliant observation Tim.
I believe Werner Herzog’s movie ‘Grizzly Man’ from a couple of years ago also served a similar function.
It is healthy to contemplate our mortality. So much of our modern culture is predicated on the notion that if you attempt to live outside the mainstream, death, pain and anguish will follow!
Well, sure. Do you want to live as a sovereign individual and maybe die from a wild animal attack or poisonous flora? How about live on your knees and try heart disease, cancer or an automobile accident?
We all die. Very few of us get to live though.
Keep up the great work Tim.
January 16th, 2008 at 10:49 am
I think the Grizzly man was a froot loop though. I don’t think Chris was. Chris was hunting and living by his wits, not playing around with Grizzly bears and pretending he was protecting them from poachers and giving them pet names.
As far as there being a moral, Krakaur, I think was a kindred spirit to Chris in a way. I mean he is a mountian climber. I don’t think he’s the moralizer but maybe the moral message is related to why its so popular. Maybe its related to why it was published and made into a movie.
I have had little tastes of what Chris was after and its intoxicating. that feeling of freedom. I think people willing to do it will do it and people afraid will remain afraid.
January 16th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Man, I also saw this BBC documentary called “Being Caribou” which was so fucking ridiculous: these retarded Canadians set off into the wilderness to follow a caribou herd - just for no damned reason. They aren’t hunting them and eating them or really even studying them scientifically. The whole thing just seems to be an advertisement for expensive unnecessary camping gear and an attitude towards Nature that simply couldn’t be less natural.
January 16th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
I agree Ted - Grizzly Man did seem to have a few arctic foxes loose in his chicken pen:)
Are there individuals who successfully embark on Mentally Unbalanced Wilderness AdventuresTM that our spectacular media / culture will not present to us because the ‘object lesson’ does not equal horrible lonely death?
January 17th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Yeah, there are. There was a whole crop of them that moved up to Alaska in the 1970’s and basically picked a spot and built a cabin and learned to live off the land.
There are people doing it now. Not a lot, there never are. Its just that nowadays you have to squat and basically break the law to live out there. There are few places to really go and be forgotton about and left alone, in the US.
You can run a trapline and hunt all your food and live in a wall tent, in a lot of these parks up in Alaska, but you need permits, hunting license etcYou can apply for a permit to build a “trapping cabin” after a couple years in the wall tent.
You have to get different permits and stuff, but Alaska is still a place you can actually live off the land. Hunt and fish and pick berries and chop firewood and live a “subsistence” lifestyle. The lifestyle involves fur trapping too, for cash.