Character Essay

Hope, Tenacity, and Ingenuity are all important things everyone must have in order to survive in life, however, when you are placed in danger, these character traits can be the most valuable thing you can have. In the sport of rock climbing/ hiking, people put themselves in harms way in order for the thrill of the sport, but also to push their limits to reach the end. However, sometimes, these dangers you believe that could not happen strike and can change your life entirely.
In Danny Boyle’s “127 Hours,” Aron Ralston is going on a little hike around a canyon were he slips and gets is arm stuck under a rock. Ralston is an excellent example of the 3 key character traits because he uses them all in order to help his escape. In the film, it showed many hallucinations Ralston would see because while he was stuck in the crevice with little to no chance of survival, he still hoped for a miracle and never gave up. His attitude to never give up, or his tenacity, was another important key element to his survival because whenever he would fail with one attempt, instead of getting depressed and giving up, he would think of another way to get out and stayed strong, even in the hardest times. The last element would be his ingenuity because he used all his knowledge of making a pulley, about amputation, and many other things, which aided him in his escape of the crevice. There is one scene where it shows a montage of images with Ralston attempting to throw rope over a ledge in order to make a pulley system, and it showed him fail many times but it showed him using all of the character traits because he never gave up, hoped for a way out, and used his knowledge of a good way to get out of the rock.
In the myth of a Sisyphus however, the man stuck on the cliff has a bit of a different attitude then Ralston had. He man stuck on the hill, who is forced to move a rock to the top, only to fail and have to try again. Although all hope of him escaping has died, he still stays strong and attempts to achieve the goal. The man does not use any of these traits because he only does one thing; rather then find other ways that could help him achieve his goal. As you can see, the difference between with someone with these characteristics and someone without show completely different outcomes. This is just another example of why it is good to have these traits and shows the pain you will have to go through if you are stuck in a dangerous type of situation.
The last example about how these traits are important would be in Krakauer’s story of “Into Thin Air.” This story is about a group of people venturing up Mt Everest, however on the decent down, a horrible storm hits and basically ends up killing most of the people on the hike. Although some people died in this story who showed good qualities and the character traits, it was not enough for the dangers that lurked in the novel. Even though all of the survivors were people who never gave up, and hoped o get down, people like Krakauer did not have to much experience and his ingenuity was of not as much help as either fFcher or halls ingenuity would be. Without these traits, Krakauer may not have made it down because if were to of just given up, then he would have just died like the rest of his friends.