Alaska

Alaska is where John McPhee spent considerable time travelling and doing research for his book Coming Into The Country. The first part of that book includes a piece titles "The Encircled River." This story adopts a cyclical narrative structure that thematically mirrors the impactful presence of natural cycles in the Arctic. As such, Alaska and the stories born there become symbolic and indicative of how structure, theme, and chronology can all be interwoven to reflect each other. In addition, it demonstrates how a thematically driven structure can derive organically from the material itself.

Princeton

Princeton is where John McPhee is a professor and it is where his classroom scenes with students take place. McPhee's position as a writing professor at an Ivy League school inherently demonstrates how successful his writing career has been. In order to gain such a prestigious position, McPhee's skills as a writer must...