In Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods, Bryson and his once good friend Stephen Katz attempt the arduous task of hiking the Appalachian Trail from end to end. While Bryson intends to hike for and by himself, he realizes that he desperately needs someone to go with. The only person willing to hike with him is his old friend Stephen Katz. Although Bryson has his reasons for hiking, Katz’s reasons are greatly different.
Katz desires to hike the AT because he wants to become a new person. He may have given up drugs and alcohol, but he is still seen as somewhat of an unhealthy person. His eating habits are undoubtedly harmful, but these are only the roots of his problem. Through his words and actions, we can see that Katz is an overall negative person. Katz wants to fix his bad habits while walking the trail because he believes that the removal from everything will put his life back in order. Only interacting with a handful of people and having only a fraction of the material possessions Katz is used to, it will be interesting to see how he will cope. Whether Katz can survive or not is unknown, but with his latent willpower and encouragement from Bryson, I believe he will make it.
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1 comment:
I like your ideas but would like to see you offer more support. The mention of being without his possessions is a new point in the discussion that you could have used to more advantage.
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