Was "the road" Chris's anthropology project?

General discussions relating to the story.
pezar
Posts: 153
Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 3:41 pm

Was "the road" Chris's anthropology project?

Postby pezar » Sat Mar 03, 2012 10:48 pm

Here's an idea that I haven't seen before. Chris apparently trained in anthropology at Emory. Upon graduating from college, an anthropologist will usually pick a group of people and live among them, doing a long, multi-year study on their way of life. Anthropologists have lived with Stone Age tribes in the Amazon for a decade. One young woman joined a group of witches, eventually leading her own coven. Was the road Chris's anthropology project? Did he mean to live among outcasts, tramps, and rejects for a few years, doing his study, then after his "Alaskan adventure" write a book, then rejoin his parents' upper-middle-class world? That would explain all the photos he took, all the journals he kept, all the friends he made. He didn't want to die after all, he intended to return to Carthage, write his book, then...???? That would mean that he wasn't searching for "the meaning of life", nor was he mentally ill. He knew exactly what he was doing. He may have started to "go native" towards the end, a well-known danger for anthropologists, in which they come to identify with their study subjects more than their original culture.

GoNorth
Posts: 259
Joined: Wed Jan 13, 2010 3:47 pm

Re: Was "the road" Chris's anthropology project?

Postby GoNorth » Sun Mar 04, 2012 5:35 pm

Maybe he looked at all the experiences he made with the people he met also from the anthropolical point of view. However I strongly believe - as many things he had said or written earlier quite clearly indicate - that he chose this life maily for himself.

pezar wrote:... then rejoin his parents' upper-middle-class world?


Certainly not. Otherwise why would he have had this attitude againt his parents all the time before he left (as we know from quite a few things he said or wrote to Carine as well as to other people)? And why would he have cut all contact with both his parents and Carine? That doesn't really make sense.


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