INTO THE WILD--High-UP JETS?

[anneyano]

My dad has described him as "such a kid" since when he first saw it. lol
So that we argued a lot after watching the movie. I was such a kid who didn't know anything. haha

My impression about the ozone jet...hmmm...
When I first saw it, I thought it represents the heaven or something. Since the very last scene was ended with the jet flying into the very big sky, and going high and high.So that I thought he was going where the god is. (Chris had mentioned about "God" so many times in the movie.)

At the same time, it represents the ultimate freedom, and happiness, I think.
According to the movie "Carine McCandless flew with her brother's ashes from Alaska to the eastern seaboard. She carried them with her on the plane... In her back pack." So that means he finally succeeded in sharing the beautiful views from the sky, the freedom with the one he had loved, and he got the truly happiness. By the way, speaking about the sharing, the sky is the only thing that people from all over the world can share. In the scene, while Chris' father was crying, he was looking up the sky. And also, Chris had been looking up the sky as well. It was kind of "connected" and "sharing", I guess. Maybe he already knew how to share something...spontaneously.

I don't know. Sorry for the completely-incoherent paragraph! lol This HW was too hard for me to think.

Teacher's note: Thanks for sharing this follow up. It makes a lot of sense. I never thought of the connection with Carine taking his ashes back home. This is described vividly in the book. --Mike www.moviesgrowenglish.com

anne

[maikuu]

You have all put forward several interesting theories about the symbolic meaning of the jets flying high in the stratosphere. Most of us have said the jets represent freedom in some way, or a connection with God. One theory suggests a connection with how Carine takes Chris' ashes back home in a jet plane, which is vividly detailed in Jon Krakauer's 'Into the Wild'. Another student notes that the jets appear in small groups, not alone, so they logically represent the idea that "happiness should be shared." I like all these ideas.

But my theory is somewhat different. I think the jets visualize the reality that no matter how hard Chris tries to escape civilization, it's never far away. In fact, those planes are literally only five or six miles away, yet infinitely out of reach. My feeling is reinforced by what Jon Krakauer says in his book about how close Chris McCandless was to saving himself, if only he had brought a map, if only he had known that there were several camps nearby and two possible ways to cross the river, all within easy walking distance.

But Krakauer also points out that having a map would have contradicted Chris' intention of going "off the map". Chris' whole point seemed to required complete separation from civilization, and a map would have been "cheating".

I don't know what Sean Penn means by those jets, but my guess is that he's thought about all of our theories and figured out how to represent them all with one simple image--the jets. So we should congratulate ourselves for validating what Mr. Penn might want us to feel, and thank Sean Penn for creating such a profound movie. --Mike http://www.moviesgrowenglish.com

[maikuu]

Please feel free to POSTREPLY. --Mike http://www.moviesgrowenglish.com