Epigraph

epigraph: a quotation or aphorism at the beginning of a literary work that is suggestive of the theme

"Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway. Th trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to lean toward each other, black and ominous, in the fading light. A vast silence reigned over the land. The land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughter, but of a laughter more terrible than any sadness-a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the Sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility. It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was the Wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild.
                                                           JACK LONDON,
                                                              White Fang

On the northern margin of the Alaska Range, just before the hulking ramparts of Mt. Mckinley and its satellites surrender to the low..."
                                                                                 -Into the Wild
                                                                                by Jon Krakauer

The epigraph here is a passage from Jack London's White Fang. The use of the epigraph shows the harshness and unfeeling nature of nature, a major theme in the book. The book tells the story of a young man who, in search for his supposed ideals strands himself with little to no food and dies. The quote hints at this by showing that life, no matter the accomplishments during it, or its intentions for itself and mankind, is really very small, futile, and fragile. The quote shows the merciless quality of nature, the same thing the life of Chris McCandless, and Krakauer's account of it,  reflected.