Ralston Scenarios

In light of the need to finish up grammar today, we'll move back to Aron Ralston for Tuesday AFTER WE GET A LITTLE MORE PROPER SENTENCE STRUCTURE UNDER OUR BELTS.

In the meantime, here is an example of a good 5-paragraph author's intent.

Throughout the history of television and entertainment, producers have green-lighted shows to tell people about stories of survival in harsh situations. While some of these programs have romanticized the person who overcame the odds, other stories have focused on how the person in question was forced to confront a more negative scenario in being able to escape his predicament. One of these adventure tales, the story of Aron Ralston, focuses on a young man who loses his arm after being trapped by a boulder in a remote slot canyon in Utah. It is this loss and the situations that lead up to Ralston’s predicament that Tom Brokaw, the producer of the NBC News special, focuses on while he leads his viewers into a story of how not to go on an adventure.
First and foremost, Brokaw asks Ralston why he goes off by himself. While Ralston gives a solid reasoning that he wants to be alone and undisturbed with his thoughts, there is still a sense that he should have had a companion with him. Had he been with this person, Brokaw reasons that Ralston could have had someone to go for help to get him out of his dilemma. In this, Brokaw shows the reader that he should never enter into something that he can’t get himself out of.
Despite this, there are times that adventurers will go places alone. This happens because people don’t always have companions to enter into their adventures with, and other times, people just want to be alone. To this, Brokaw keeps repeating about how Ralston told nobody where he was going. In this, Ralston violates a law of traveling in the outdoors, which is to at least give potential rescuers a place to begin their search if the hiker ends up missing. As a result, Brokaw stresses to his viewers a need to be responsible in the harsh outdoors.
In addition to this, there is a focus on traveling in the backcountry with the appropriate amount of gear. Ralston’s cheap knife, lack of food, water, and clothing were just a few examples that proved that he wasn’t ready for the what ifs of the remote desert backcountry. As a result of this, he is forced to make due and suffer conditions that he could have prevented had he had warmer clothing, more water, and additional food. To this, Brokaw seems to be restating the Boy Scout motto of “be prepared” to all of the would be adventurers in the world.
While Ralston’s story ends with a spiritual rebirth, Brokaw stays focused to the what could have been and the potential for death that might have been. His vision of Ralston’s disfigurement as a catastrophe that could have been averted is just as powerful as the heroic nature of Ralston choosing life when he could have succumbed to his own destruction. As a result, the viewer truly sees this video as a warning of what could be if he does the same dumb things that Ralston, a man who should have known better, did.