Cause and Effect

One way that a story-teller moves the story forward is by relating the events to each other. This can take the form of cause-and-effect relationships. There are many different ways to describe this relationship: focus on causes, focus on effects, or focus on both. Sometimes and effect has many causes, sometimes only one of several possible causes is sufficient to have an effect. Many times the cause and effect relationship takes the form of a complex chain in which several causes create an effect that in turn creates other effects. In the excerpt from Into Thin Air, try to examine what happens and why. What are the causes of the events that happen? What are the effects?

In the excerpt from Into Thin Air, a multitude of people die on the mountain due to a sudden storm that catches the climbers off guard. This catastrophe occurred for a couple of reasons. Mountainous weather is capricious and hard-to-predict, and this is the underlying (the final) cause for this event. Even if there wasn't a storm, it would have still been exceedingly difficult to navigate their way back to the camp.

However the choices the mountaineers made also contributed to their unfortunate deaths. The decision to finish climbing the mountain despite being behind schedule, and how they wasted precious time on the apex were such choices. The prideful or confident thinking of the mountain climbers also attributed to their deaths; some chose to continue up the slope despite the dangers involved, and one member died because he decided to wait for their team leader to return down the slope.

Krakouer's difficult journey down to camp was also hindered because of his ailing medical and physical conditions. Furthermore, a blunder on the behalf of one of his group members caused him to rapidly waste a large portion of his oxygen, causing him more harm.