A Life Of Nonconformity In Into The Wild By Jon Krakauer

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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

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