Guilt Theme Analysis

In the final chapters of Into Thin Air, it becomes clear that guilt is one of the key themes of the book. On the afternoon of May 10, 1996, Jon Krakauer makes it back to his tent, having climbed to the summit of Mount Everest; exhausted, he falls into a deep sleep. Unbeknownst to Krakauer at the time, however, many of his teammates get caught in the middle of a deadly snowstorm. One of these teammates, a Japanese woman named Yasuko Namba, stumbles within 500 feet of Krakauer’s tent, but later freezes to death. The idea that he could have emerged from his tent and saved some of his peers’ lives proves almost unbearable for Krakauer. In many ways, Into Thin Air represents Krakauer’s attempt to come to terms with his own grief and guilt concerning the May 10 disaster.

After the events of May 10, 1996, Krakauer seems to suffer from a psychological affliction known as survivor’s guilt. Sometimes, when people survive a massive tragedy, they feel an irrational sense of shame and responsibility to the deceased. In his book, Krakauer admits that he partly blames himself for the deaths of Yasuko Namba and other teammates. Sometimes, he hates himself for returning to his tent and falling asleep, rather than waiting for other people to arrive. As Krakauer himself acknowledges, this sense of guilt is largely irrational: there is no particular reason why Krakauer should have searched for Namba—he had no idea that she was missing or that there was a dangerous storm. Neal Beidleman, a mountain guide who saved five lives on Krakauer’s expedition, feels a similar sense of survivor’s guilt—he also blames himself for not saving the life of Yasuko Namba. Beidleman’s guilt demonstrates the basic irrationality of survivor’s guilt: by any sane measure, Beidleman should be proud of saving five lives, not guilty for failing to save a sixth. Yet Beidleman, as well as Krakauer, continues to suffer from survivor’s guilt—the mind’s irrational but uncontrollable response to trauma.

It’s been suggested that Into Thin Air—the book itself—represents Krakauer’s attempt to cope with survivor’s guilt. While Krakauer mostly refrains from blaming anyone for the May 10 disaster, he criticizes a guide named Anatoli Boukreev on more than one occasion. Boukreev was a highly experienced mountaineer, but instead of climbing slowly and helping his clients, he climbed ahead of everyone else. As a result, Boukreev was asleep in his tent on the evening of May 10, when he arguably should have been helping his clients find their way back. Krakauer implies that Boukreev’s behavior may have partly caused the deaths of several clients. Krakauer’s accusations have been hotly disputed, in and out of the world of professional mountaineering. Some experts have argued that Krakauer is right to criticize Boukreev, while others insist that Boukreev’s decision to climb back to his tent gave him the energy to go back into the snow later that night and save the lives of several other clients. (Since writing Into Thin Air, Krakauer has praised Boukreev for his heroism on the night of May 10.) Some have suggested that Krakauer irrationally blames Boukreev in order to mitigate his own sense of guilt. In a lot of ways, Boukreev is the character who most resembles Krakauer: quiet, talented, and individualistic, he climbs back to the tents early on May 10, rather than staying behind. Thus, Krakauer’s criticism could be a psychological defense mechanism, transferring his guilt and self-hatred to another person. However, since the events of 1996, Krakauer has tried to “work through” his guilt by talking to therapists, communicating with other climbers, and generally learning from his and Boukreev’s mistakes.