Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Getting to know Chris McCandless through Direct and Indirect Characterization


Direct characterization is when the writer explicitly tells the reader what a character looks and acts like.
Examples:
1. " He didn't appear to be very old; eighteen, maybe nineteen at most." pg.3
2. " He was congenial and seemed well educated." pg. 5
3. " Virtually no subcutaneous fat remained on the body, and the muscles had withered significantly in the days or weeks prior to death. At the time of the autopsy, McCandless's remains weighed sixty-seven pounds. Starvation was posited at the most probable cause of death." pg. 15
4. " Odd young man he knew as Alex." pg.16
5. " Weterberg, a hyper kinetic man with thick shoulders and a black goatee, owns a grain elevator in Carthage..." pg. 16
6. " McCandless was smallish with the hard, stringy physique of an itinerant laborer.: pg.16
7. There was something about the youngsters eyes. Dark and emotive, they suggested a trace of exotic bloodin his heritage- Greek, maybe, or Chippewa- and conveyed a vulnerability that made Westerberg want to take the kid under his wing." pg. 16
8. " He ahd the kind of sensitive good looks that women made a big fuss over." pg.16
9. " He was nearsited and wore steel-rimmed glasses. He looked hungry." pg. 17
10. " you could tell right away that Alex was intelligent." pg. 18

Indirect characterization is when the writer shows the reader what the character does, says, thinks, and/or feels, and then lets the reader draw his/her own conclusions about the character.
Examples:
1. " Alex didn't seem to worried." pg. 6
2. " The word that comes to mind is excited. he couldn't wait to head out there and get started." pg. 6
3. " In may 1990, Chris graduated from Emory University in Atlanta, where he'd been a columnist for, and editor of, the student newspaper, The Emry Wheel, and had distinguished himself as a history and anthropology major with a 3.72 grade-point average." pg. 20
4. " What Walt, Billie, and Carine didn't know when they flew down to Atlanta to attend Chris's commencement- what nobody knew- was that he would shortly donate all the money in his college fund to OXFAM America, a charity dedicated to fighting hunger," pg.20
5. He already had a good car that worked fines and his parent insisted to buy him a new one in a letter written to Carine he said, " I can't believe they tried to buy me a car." pg. 21
6. " I'm going to have to be real careful not to accept any gifts from them in the future because they will think they have bought my respect.: pg. 21
7. " To symbolize the complete severance from his previous life, he even adopted a new name. No longer would he answer to Chris McCandless; he was now Alexander Supertramp, master of his own destiny." pg. 23
8. " Worried that he would be denied entry because he was carrying no identification, he sneaked into Mexico by paddling through the dam's open floodgates and shooting the spillway below." pg. 34
9. " But his entry of Mexico is either unnoticed or ignored. Alexander is Jubilant!" pg. 34
10. " Having reached his destination, McCandless slowed his pace, and his mood became more contemplative." pg. 35

According to the traits McCandless is a young and good looking man. Based off of what people said about him he was intelligent, got along with people very well and works hard at everything he does. He was a great man, full of desire to find his purpose in life.

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