Into Thin Air
Symbols
Ropes and knots
Loyalty and teamwork
Oxygen
Symbol of survival
A safe haven
Symbolizing completion
The Journey
Experience
Some of them have climbed Everest more than once
Doug Hansen
Andy Harris
Inexperience
Some climbers have never climbed a mountain before
Sandy Patterson
Camps 1-4
The climbers adjusted to the altitude by climbing to each camp one at a time and then sleeping at each one before summit day.
The Sherpas
Assisted in the expeditions
The Setting
The Summit
Camp Four
Camp Three
Camp Two
Camp One
Base Camp
The Plot
Few people from Rob Hall's expedition make it back down
Many rescue attempts are made
Climbers begin going missing and getting lost
Many bumps in the road like the climbers health deteriorating and the massive storm
Main goal is to reach the top of Mount Everest
Characters
Protagonist
Jon Krakauer
Narrator and main character of the story
Antagonist
Mount Everest
Causes a lot of harm and distraught
Mentor
Rob Hall
Guides to success
Heroes
Mike Groom
Rescued Beck Weathers by guiding him down the mountain
Lopsang Jangbu
Attempted to save Scott Fischer
Anatoli Boukreev
Rescued a group of lost climbers all by himself
Lt. Col. Madan
Saved two climbers by flying a helicopter above Camp Two
Literary Devices
Tone
Ominous tone, the readers never feel a sense of safety
Conflict
Man vs Nature
Bias
Into Thin Air is a first person account, so it is expected of Jon Krakauer to have wrote with some bias
Imagery
"And then I found myself atop a slender wedge of ice, adorned with a discarded oxygen cylinder and a battered aluminum survey pole, with nowhere higher to climb. A string of Buddhist prayer flags snapped furiously in the wind. Far below, down a side of the mountain I had never laid eyes on, the dry Tibetan plateau stretched to the horizon as a boundless expanse of dun-colored earth." (Jon, 1997, pg. 180)
Foreshadowing
The story begins with a flash forward of Jon on the summit
