Call of the Wild- Chapters 4 5 6
Chapter 4 What happens when Chris/ Alex drives the Datsun into the Lake Mead National Recreation Area? A flash flood comes and floods the engine of his Datsun. He is frustrated, and in his frustration he kills the battery trying to get it restarted. Rather than go to the local authorities (He decides he shouldn’t due to his expired registration and license) he abandons the car with a note saying anyone who can get it out can have it. What do his parents think? Alex’s parents are very worried about him. They become even more worried when they realize that he told the post office to hold all of the letters they sent him until a certain date.
Where does Chris/Alex travel in this chapter and what is the time line (dates and locations) July 9th 1990- Datson is flooded is flooded at Lake Mead July 10th 1990- Chris hikes toward N California August 1990- He gets a ride from/meets Crazy Ernie Chapter 5. What did the people of Bullhead City think of Chris/Alex? He is remembered as a strange but nice person. The employees at the McDonald’s where he worked said he worked at a slow pace, which contradicts what was said about his work ethic earlier in the novel. They said he needed to bathe more and one lady feels he quit because she told him so.
Describe the slabs in your own words. The slabs are an abandoned military base that has become home to a lot of drifters. What do we learn about Chris/Alex in this chapter? Is your view of him changing? In this chapter we learn that Chris’s work ethic is starting to disappear because the former employees say that they felt he worked slow. My opinion is not really changing any of him because he still is very odd and obviously he is not all right. 4. Trace the timeline in this chapter. May 1991- Departs Las Vegas July/August 1991- Oregon coast
September 1991- Hitchhiked down highway 101 to Bullhead city Several months later- moved to the slabs Chapter 6. What changes do you notice in the narrative stance of chapter 6? Chapter 6 isn’t really about chris, its more about the people he met and the lives he affected. Why did they send Krakauer a letter from Ronald Franz? Because Franz wanted a copy of the magazine article which featured Chris and felt very attached to him. In Chris/Alex’s letter to Ron Franz he reveals his philosophy of life. This is important for an understanding of what happened to him. Summarize his ideas in your won words. If you want to get more out of life, Ron, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will first appear to be crazy” 57. This is important because for the first time in words he is sort of describing the lifestyle that he is trying to live. He put the ideolism that he is living by into a phrase. What did Krakauer learn when he visited Franz? He learned that Franz was a very physically large men who did not show his age. He had always been praying for Chris to walk back down the road. When he learned that Chris had died, “{he} became an athiest” because his prayers were not answered”
