J Browning
Mr. Berg
English 121
February 2, 2007
Into the Wild
Today’s adolescents usually go on some sort of “soul-flight” throughout their youth to try and find themselves and discover who they really are. However, in Into the Wild, Everett Ruess’s father said, “The older person does not realize the soul-flights of the adolescent. I think we all poorly understood Everett,” (Miller 306) makes it look like only today’s youth go through these “soul-flights.” That’s not true. People of all ages at one point in their lives have gone through a time when they tried to realize who they really were. So why are did Everett’s father say that older people don’t know what it’s like to be an adolescent when in fact they were just like them in their younger days?
Let’s think about the population of youths at different points in history. For example, some Native American tribes required their youths to go through a ritual right of passage requiring them to go into the wild by themselves. They had to fend for themselves, retrieve food, and survive without the help of anybody. This was their form of a “soul-flight.” They adventured out into the wild without their security blanket of their tribe and family. Also, what about some of the teens in WWII who desired fight against the Germans in order to feel a sense of accomplishment and becoming a man? These events continue to happen all the time, only under different contexts. Now, imagine these people in their elderly life. Just because they’re old, does that mean that they don’t remember what it was like to be an adolescent? Does it not mean that they know what it’s like to find themselves and go through their own “soul-flight?” Just because they [older people] were born in a different generation, it doesn’t mean that they haven’t gone through the same things through life that younger generations have gone through.
Even though Everett’s father was an older person who said that they don’t understand the soul-flights of the young, it’s possible that Everett’s father didn’t really know his son. Possibly he never went on a soul-flight of his own in his youth, but the thing is that many people everywhere at one point in their lives have gone through such soul-seeking expeditions.
Mr. Berg
English 121
February 2, 2007
Into the Wild
Today’s adolescents usually go on some sort of “soul-flight” throughout their youth to try and find themselves and discover who they really are. However, in Into the Wild, Everett Ruess’s father said, “The older person does not realize the soul-flights of the adolescent. I think we all poorly understood Everett,” (Miller 306) makes it look like only today’s youth go through these “soul-flights.” That’s not true. People of all ages at one point in their lives have gone through a time when they tried to realize who they really were. So why are did Everett’s father say that older people don’t know what it’s like to be an adolescent when in fact they were just like them in their younger days?
Let’s think about the population of youths at different points in history. For example, some Native American tribes required their youths to go through a ritual right of passage requiring them to go into the wild by themselves. They had to fend for themselves, retrieve food, and survive without the help of anybody. This was their form of a “soul-flight.” They adventured out into the wild without their security blanket of their tribe and family. Also, what about some of the teens in WWII who desired fight against the Germans in order to feel a sense of accomplishment and becoming a man? These events continue to happen all the time, only under different contexts. Now, imagine these people in their elderly life. Just because they’re old, does that mean that they don’t remember what it was like to be an adolescent? Does it not mean that they know what it’s like to find themselves and go through their own “soul-flight?” Just because they [older people] were born in a different generation, it doesn’t mean that they haven’t gone through the same things through life that younger generations have gone through.
Even though Everett’s father was an older person who said that they don’t understand the soul-flights of the young, it’s possible that Everett’s father didn’t really know his son. Possibly he never went on a soul-flight of his own in his youth, but the thing is that many people everywhere at one point in their lives have gone through such soul-seeking expeditions.
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