evans and nash

In the opening to "selections from into the wild" both Estwick Evans and Roderick Nash say similar things about people getting tired of their daily routines and looking to do something new. Evans says the reason for doing so is to "experience the pleasure of suffering, and the novelty of danger" (344). These are two things that one bored with everyday life may not experience in civilization. so he says he is going on an adventure to get away from the imperfections of civilization so he can discover "more correct view of human nature." Nash refers to wilderness as "the ideal stage for the Romantic individual to exercise the cult that he frequently made of his own soul" (344). Nash belittles people like Evans by calling them Romantics and referring to wilderness as a stage. Perhaps there is no greater truth than what we already see in civilization.