A Life Of Nonconformity Edger Allen Poe once said “I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity.” Is this how Chris McCandless felt as he grew up in his urban Maryland home? In “Into The Wild” Jon Krakauer did the best that he could to accurately dissect and help the reader understand the mind of Chris McCandless. This idea that Chris had of living a life in nature and revolving his life around dangerous adventures is not a new concept, rather Chris is just famous for it. Many young men before Chris have had the same fantasies, they've read the same books and felt the same obsessive need to be in nature. Why these men are motivated to risk their lives doing seemingly pointless activities that in no way shape or form benefit …show more content…
As Wallace Stegner said, “What Everett Ruess was after was beauty, and he conceived beauty in pretty romantic terms. We might be inclined to laugh at the extravagance of his beauty-worship if there were not something almost magnificent in his single-minded dedication to it. Esthetics as a parlor affectation is ludicrous and sometimes a little obscene; as a way of life it sometimes attains dignity. If we laugh at Everett Ruess we shall have to laugh at John Muir, because there was little difference between them except age” (87 Stegner). Everett is like chris, Krakauer even compared the two, this being said one could replace Everett Ruess with Chris McCandless and the quote above would still mean the same thing. Most people look down upon Chris’s lifestyle and find it foolish, although this lifestyle has its flaws in the long term, this way of life carries a sense of beauty and nonconformity that most people will never understand. This lifestyle is not only full of beautiful and adventure but it gives life experiences that are worth more than money could buy. When Jon asked about Chris to one of his former co workers she replied with, “When he talked, he was always going on about trees and nature and weird stuff like that. We all thought he was missing a few screws” (40 Krakauer). Although Chris may come off as “missing a few screws” he was actually very intelligent
Into the Wild was written by Jon Krakauer and describes the life of a young man named Christopher Johnson McCandless. Chris also went by the name of Alexander Supertramp, or Alex, to most people who he came across in order to stay off the grid. Chris ultimately abandoned his old way of life to achieve his long-term dream of visiting the Alaskan wilderness and living solely off the land. Throughout his journey, Chris hitchhiked his way to almost all of his locations.
Leo Tolstoy wrote, “I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence” (Krakauer 15). In chapter three, Chris McCandless meets Wayne Westerburg and spends a good amount of time in Carthage, South Dakota. While there, he stayed with Wayne for three days and told him all about his plan to go to Saco Hot Springs. Chris left for his next adventure, but returned to Carthage shortly thereafter. Then, after Wayne was arrested, and Chris did not have any work to do, he left again to pursue his dream of living in Alaska.
In his book Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer explores the impossibility of attaining complete self-reliance, revealing how eternally elusive it is. Krakauer suggests to the reader that Chris McCandless is not an independent, young man capable of walking into the wild self-sufficiently, alluding to the idea that in order to reach an autonomous state, McCandless had to rely on other things to get him there. Krakauer supports the suggestion that McCandless was not independent with the notion that when confronted with opportunities, McCandless chose to take what was presented to him rather than work for what he needed. A way in which Krakauer expresses self-reliance as being impractical is when McCandless decides to “take advantage of [the bus’]
answers, Krakauer develops his own theory that McCandless consciously chose to avoid any human relationship after his separation from his family, so that he could bear, without fully appreciating, the loss of such relationships. For example, Krakauer states that McCandless continued to head north after Ron Franz, an elderly man who treated McCandless as his son, expressed a desire to adopt him. He explains, “McCandless was thrilled to be on his way north…relieved that he had again evaded the impending threat of human intimacy, of friendship, and all the emotional baggage that comes with it. He had fled the catastrophic confines of his family. He’s successfully kept Jane Burres and Wayne Westerberg at arm’s length, flitting out of their lives before anything was expected of him.
Jon Krakauer's Into The WIld glorifies the journey of a young man, Chris McCandless. In efforts to make his life better by living in solitude, McCandless traveled all across America for two years exploring all different places to find a challenging, yet hospitable, place for him to leave. Chris took this step in his life to escape family issues and harassment and successfully lived for two years as Alex McCandless traveling through the West, South, and making his way to the Alaskan wilderness where he unfortunately faced his downfall. In August of 1992 on the Alaskan Stampede trail, Chris died of starvation, and Krakauer tracked his footsteps and journey after three years to understand Chris as person and why he made the decisions he made.
In a way Chris Mccandless became a casualty to his own passion and obsession. “Into the Wild” is a book written by John Krakauer about a man who went from being a graduate at Emory University to fulfilling a drive and need of living as one with the wild. Mccandless had more courage than many people and he was willing to give up anything and walk away. Chris was a man seeking adventure, filled with confidence and a dream. It seems that he lived with one mindset that nothing could stop him and he was going to prove that; he hitch hiked his way through America to reach a point of personal fulfillment.
In the national bestseller Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, the book investigates and observes Chris McCandless and his life-up to the moment of his fascinating, mysterious death. McCandless had died in Alaska in a makeshift cabin out in the middle of the woods, due to consuming a toxic substance that slowly starved him to death. His story was featured in a newspaper article illustrating his life before his deaths, and much criticism was generated towards it. Many thought that McCandless was just another Christopher McCandless was another “one of those crackpots from the lower forty-eight who come north to live out ill-considered Jack London fantasies” (Krakauer 4), and that he wasn’t anyone respectable to look up to. Christopher McCandless, however, was unique in his determination, love of wisdom, and relentless optimism, and should be regarded as an admirable person because of these traits of his.
Chris McCandless looked up to Henry David Thoreau’s ideas in his Walden excerpt. John Krakauer went on to make McCandless’ journey a novel of its own. However, Chris McCandless and Henry David Thoreau’s ideas on how one should live their life didn’t always compare as much as contrast. Thoreau does not like the outdoors as much as Chris does, “I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one” (Walden).
All over the world, people read short stories, articles, and any other books. Those having numerous genres to choose from. Some make us question the actions of an individual, some are inspired by he/she, and some kind of angry at the person or character. Into the Wild is one of those books that makes you envision what that person must of gone through to do such a risky, yet adventurous journey alone. Some may or may not have the full picture of why Chris McCandless followed through with his journey.
Jake Melini Walter English 11 Advanced (4) 5 May 2023 How individualism and nature influenced Chris McCandless Into The Wild is a nonfiction book written by Jon Krakauer. This story follows a man named Chris Mccandless. Chris is obsessed with the outdoors and exploring but could never quench his thirst for it. Chris always lived by trying new lifestyles and not letting his fear control what he does. McCandless is fearless, but also dumb for some of the decisions he made.
In Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, Chris McCandless seeks to escape the boundaries of society and find his true self in the wilderness. At one point he befriends Ronald Franz, an old man who lost his only son. The two form a bond, Ronald viewing Chris as the son he lost. However, Chris left Franz like many others, writing to Franz and encouraging him to take up his way of life, saying, “So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. ”(56-57)
Impartiality can be defined as “not partial or biased; fair; just” (Dictionary.com). When biographers tell someone else’s story, they often struggle to maintain impartiality. A biography will rarely be, if ever, a collection of truths in its entirety with no mention of opinion. A biographer can simply not remain completely neutral. Like many others before him and many following as well, Jon Krakauer clearly fails to hit the mark of impartiality.
Survival and Loyalty The word survival means: “the act or fact of surviving, especially under adverse or unusual circumstances.” Many people rely on their faith to help them with survival as well as many other things. The word loyalty means: “Faithfulness to commitments or obligations.”
In Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, he focuses on one main person, Chris McCandless. Krakauer explains most of Chris's life and even, at times, puts his own input into the pages of this book. Chris McCandless (a.k.a Alexander Supertramp) was from Chesapeake Beach, Maryland. Chris had a father, Walt McCandless, a mother, Billie Mccandless, and a younger sister, Carine. Chris's obsession with nature and high-risk activities was believed to start when "Walt took Billie and his children from both marriages to climb Longs Peak in Colorado."
Based on a real story, Into the Wild can make us think from different perspectives about what the main character Christopher McCandless did. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer is a dramatic but also remarkable story from a young, newly graduated, college student that escaped for a long wild journey but never came back. As time passes throughout the book, the reader may notice how the main character interacts with society and nature, finally McCandless dies in the wild but even though he was struggling for survival he died happy. Some people never get out of their comfort zone, others are tired of it and retire from their comfort zone to have different experiences in life, some are good enough or some are terrible.