Jan 26, 2012

McCandless & Thoreau #5

"Although McCandless was enough of a realist to know that hunting game was an unavoidable component of living off the land, he had always been ambivalent about killing animals. That ambivalence turned to remorse soon after he shot the moose. It was relatively small, weighing perhaps six hundred or seven hundred pounds, but it neverthless amounted to a huge quantity of meat."
                                                                           -Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer, page 166

1 comment:

  1. Another similarity is shown in this quote. Thoreau and McCandless both hated killing animals. They both thought of every life, as something that is very precious, and something that deserves respect, even the animals. They loved animals, because they were part of nature. Thoreau was a vegetarian because of that matter. However, in McCandless' case, he just did not like killing the animals himself. The novel never mentions anything about McCandless being a vegetarian, and that is why that after the one time he kills an animal due to hunger, he realizes that hunting is necessary in some cases, and that killing is sometimes how our lives are, in order to survive himself.

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