Leo Tolstoy

The Russian novelist and moral philosopher Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) ranks as one of the world's great writers, and his War and Peace has been called the greatest novel ever written.

Leo Tolstoy was one of the great rebels of all time, a man who during a long and stormy life was at odds with Church, government, literary tradition, and his own family. Yet he was a conservative, obsessed by the idea of God in an age of scientific positivism. He brought the art of the realistic novel to its highest development. Tolstoy's brooding concern for death made him one of the precursors of existentialism. Yet the bustling spirit that animates his novels conveys--perhaps--more of life than life itself.

Tolstoy's father, Count Nikolay Ilyich Tolstoy, came of a noble family dating back to the 14th century and prominent from the time of Peter I. Both Tolstoy's father and grandfather had a passion for gambling and had exhausted the family wealth.


Essential Facts
1.Tolstoy lost his mother when he was only two years old and his father seven years later.
2.Tolstoy was sent to law school but soon returned home. His teachers found him completely unwilling to learn.
3.Tolstoy loved to gamble and as a young man often found himself in debt due to his gambling habit.
4.Tolstoy rarely hung out with the writers of his time. He found them too liberal and too fascinated with Western (European and American) living styles.
5.Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi were inspired by Tolstoy’s philosophy of nonviolence.


http://www.enotes.com/authors/leo-tolstoy

Stream of Consciousness and Illusion

What is all this? What is all this stuff around me, this stream of experiences that I seem to be having all the time?

Throughout history there have been people who say it is all illusion. I think they may be right. But if they are right what could this mean? If you just say "It's all an illusion" this gets you nowhere - except that a whole lot of other questions appear. Why should we all be victims of an illusion, instead of seeing things the way they really are? What sort of illusion is it anyway? Why is it like that and not some other way? Is it possible to see through the illusion? And if so what happens next.

These are difficult questions, but if the stream of consciousness is an illusion we should be trying to answer them, rather than more conventional questions about consciousness. I shall explore these questions, though I cannot claim that I will answer them. In doing so I shall rely on two methods. First there are the methods of science; based on theorising and hypothesis testing - on doing experiments to find out how the world works. Second there is disciplined observation - watching experience as it happens to find out how it really seems. This sounds odd. You might say that your own experience is infallible - that if you say it is like this for you then no one can prove you wrong. I only suggest you look a bit more carefully. Perhaps then it won't seem quite the way you thought it did before. I suggest that both these methods are helpful for penetrating the illusion - if illusion it is.

We must be clear what is meant by the word 'illusion'. An illusion is not something that does not exist, like a phantom or phlogiston. Rather, it is something that it is not what it appears to be, like a visual illusion or a mirage. When I say that consciousness is an illusion I do not mean that consciousness does not exist. I mean that consciousness is not what it appears to be. If it seems to be a continuous stream of rich and detailed experiences, happening one after the other to a conscious person, this is the illusion.

Into the Wild .. Characters

Christopher Johnson McCandless (main Character)
Novel revolves around his wild journey across the United States. McCandless is a young and successful college graduate with a good job and money in the bank who one day decides to up and disappear in response to his father’s indiscretions, giving away his money and becoming homeless. With a father who constantly pushed him to perfection, McCandless could no longer deal with life and spitefully left everything he knew. He eventually ends up in the wilds of Alaska, living in a bus, only to pass away before he has a chance to return to civilization. Krakauer does directly attempt to show McCandless’s thinking, but acknowledges that his, Krakauer’s, these thoughts might be inaccurate. Instead Krakauer focuses on using indirect characterization, using a great deal of detail to define McCandless’s character.


Wayne Westerberg
After McCandless runs from his family, particularly his father, he runs across Wayne who becomes a close friend and a father figure. Because he does not judge Chris, Wayne acts an inspiration to McCandless. Despite their closeness, McCandless leaves Carthage to wander around again, but maintain friendship with Westerberg through letters. Westerberg is also indirectly characterized through his behavior toward McCandless.


Samuel Walter McCandless, Jr.
As McCandless’s father, Walt becomes the root of Krakauer’s theories on why McCandless ran off as he did. Walt himself is a rich man and attempts to persuade McCandless to follow his father’s footsteps. After five years of dwelling on his anger against his father, McCandless decides that he stand his parents and disappears, attempting to teach his them a lesson as well. Walt is similarly indirectly characterized, as an opposing figure to McCandless.


Billie McCandless
Mother of McCandless, is not revealed much my Jon Krakauer except for a few moments in McCandless’s earlier life. She deeply mourns when discovering her son disappeared.


Carine McCandless
As McCandless’s sister, Carine is very close to him and he is able to share his feelings with her, the only member of his family he feels comfortable doing so with. McCandless writes letters to Carine throughout the five years after he learns of his father’s anger towards him.


Jan Burres
As a drifter herself, Jan meets McCandless as he arrives tired and hungry by the side of the road. Along with her boyfriend, she takes care of McCandless, attempting to nurture his desire to live free of society, but also to warn him of the dangers in his actions. She tries to convince him of the errors of his ways and send him back to his mother as she is estranged from her own son. She is intrigued by him and decides that he will eventually give up his wandering lifestyle. As a motherly figure in his life, Burres is a key individual in his journey.


Ronald Franz
Ronald is an eighty year old widower, whose son and wife passed away forty years earlier, leaving him an empty man. Because of his grief, Franz becomes a kind soul trying to find meaning in life. When he meets McCandless, he immediately feels the desire to offer his advice. McCandless convinces Franz about the excitement of leaving the material word and entering the road. In the end, Franz is alone, on the road and hoping for death.


http://www.course-notes.org

Into the Wild .. Use of the Third Person

McCandless remains a somewhat ghostly presence even in this biography of his life. Although Krakauer uses frequent excerpts from Chris's personal journals, the reader always feels somewhat distanced, partly owing to his habit of writing about himself in the third person under an assumed name. Only Chris's final journal entries are written in the first person and signed with his real name, perhaps underscoring the shocking realization of first the possibility and then the certainty of his own imminent death.

The tone of these final words is frightened at first, then rueful and courageous, and finally serene and reconciled. Other than these journal extracts, all of the information about McCandless is fragmentary and pieced together from the testimony of people who had met him on his journeys.

Krakauer uses third person omniscient in Into the Wild to prove to the readers that McCandless was a simple boy, similar to everyone else. Even tough McCandless does not wish to fit in with the reset of the world, or even his own family, Krakauer clearly explains why. Through Krakauer’s use of third person omniscient point of view, the reader can understand McCandless’s want for escape from the drama in his family, the stress from education, and a from a routinely life.



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Into The Wild .. The Plot

McCandless escapes his life, to being tramping. He changes his name to Alexander Supertramp in order to escape from his previous life, and barricade anyone from tracking him. During his trip to wherever the road leads him, McCandless encounters numerous friendly individuals who do not judge his lifestyle and offer him shelter. He continues to contact some of these people through letters. Eventually, McCandless plans to travel to the Stampede Trail in Alaska, to spend several months in an abandoned bus. McCandless cannot strive on that bus, he runs out of nutrition and is unable to move. As a result McCandless dies in the bus. Krakauer utilizes McCandless’s journal and many other sources to trace McCandless’s story and journey.

Into The Wild .. Kindness & Evil Themes 2

Kindness of People

Regardless the belief that evil people are everywhere, McCandless’s story disagrees. McCandless meets many people, who help him obtain a job, offer him a place to stay and don’t judge his outlook on life. Franz, Westerberg, and Burres are some of the few very friendly people McCandless meets that welcome him.

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Evil of money

McCandless actions prove that wealth is useless. He abandons his cash, his car, and his other possessions to tramp. McCandless’s tramping is a bold statement against the corruption, conflict, and hypocrisy present in the word due to the existence of money.

Into the Wild .. Boy in Nature Theme

Boy's role in nature is the general theme of Into the Wild. The subject of the book, Chris McCandless, believes that boy's ultimate joy can only be found in communion with nature. McCandless is a greedy reader, and his favorite authors are quoted frequently to support McCandless's romantic view of natural communion. Jack London and Henry David Thoreau are two of McCandless's favorite authors, and their immense respect for nature influences the impressionable young man. However, nature is a fickle beast, turning from friendly ally to cruel enemy in the blink of an eye. McCandless is not insensible to this fact. His personal experience and the literary accounts he enjoys reading both teach him that nature's laws do not change for any man. Natural cause and effect can work just as easily against.