Adriel Stokes HSTR_467 5/6/2016 Final Paper   Illuminating Trends in Psychological Narratives in Mountaineering and Climbing Literature   There are two explanations that can account for the reason that there is such a vast amount of mountaineering literature. The first is that they make for good reads; they are exciting, often filled with themes…

No Picnic on Mount Kenya gives an interesting account of life in a POW camp during World War Two. Unlike Seven Years in Tibet, the author is on an express adventure to climb, not to escape. The story embodies notions of heroism that we have discussed in class, as it depicts three men off on…

Nordwand (North Face in English) was released in 2008, and gives a dramatized account of The Tragedy of Tony Kurz chapter, in The White Spider. It is not based on the book, but more than half of the movie takes place on the wall of the Eiger, playing out with varying accuracy the scenes depicted…

For my final paper topic I will be examining the trends in narratives employed about the psychology of the main hero character and how they overcome their tribulations, and what this may say about the author and time period. It’s always interesting to analyze the perspective of the author, especially in biographies and auto-biographies. Without…

True Summit transformed Herzog’s bland, overdramatic, national fairy tale into a true adventure story, racked not only by weather and mountains, but also by anger bordering on hate. Every bad notion I had of Herzog was confirmed by Roberts and his compilation of memoirs by the “knights of the sky”, especially Lachenal’s. A crucial moment…

It was nice to read a book that finally dove head on into the topic we’ve been touching on every class- the cultural aspect of the Sherpas. I really enjoyed this book, because so much of it came as a surprise. I expected Sherpa life to much different than how it was portrayed. I expected…

“Social Climbing on Annapurna” forced me to add an extra dimension to mountaineering that I had not considered, that being that it can not be above political or social discussions. I would prefer to gaze at the Wanderer as the first description, that being one individual above the problems of men and women, only on…