Chris Mccandless The Wild Analysis

In 1992, 24 year old Christopher McCandless abandoned his possessions and decided to hitchhike to Alaska and invent a new life for himself. Chris had just finished college and many thought he was going to further his education but instead he took a fatal trip into the wild. There are many questions still unanswered to why he felt he needed to go on this trip and people will never know the real reason why Chris McCandless hitchhiked to Alaska by himself with insufficient equipment. Although many people think that Chris McCandless went into the wild due to literacy influences, the real reasons behind his actions were due to family problems and his risk-taking tendencies.

“If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be.” ―Maya Angelou. Jon Krakauer’s true story titled Into the Wild is about a man who decides to throw away his old life and escape the rules of conventional society. Twenty-two-year-old Chris McCandless came from a well-to-do family in Virginia and, without warning, abandons everything. He changes his name, loses contact with his family, gives away his car and all his money, and begins a two-year long journey hitchhiking to Alaska where he eventually dies of starvation. Although it may seem as though Chris McCandless is immature or reckless, he is actually rather admirable for his ideals because they allow him to live a life he is happy with.

We have all made mistakes, for some they are small mistakes that do not impact anyone. For others, they are of mammoth proportions and have a preponderant impact on how people think, or say about them. In the book Into the Wild it tells about the journey of Chris McCandless who died in the Alaskan wilderness. Chris McCandless was definitely one of these people who made a big mistake. People around the globe have mixed feelings about this twentieth century adventurer. Some view him as a hero whose ideals should be embraced, while others see him as an arrogant, stubborn, and reckless vagabond whose dreams led to his demise. With numerous opinions about who he was, it is up to the reader to choose their ideas of who he was. To me and many others

“I don’t want to know what time it is. I don’t want to know what day it is or where I am. None of that matters” (Krakauer 7). In Krakauer’s novel, Into the Wild, one of the key themes is the fact that the main character, Chris McCandless, values his principles more than his own family, possessions, or the people he cares about. He shows this in many ways throughout the novel and Krakauer hints on every single one. Several people McCandless met on his trek admired his principles and it led them to admire him. He is very anti-materialistic and shows this quality by giving the rest of his college fund to a charity fighting for world hunger. In Solitude, Thoreau writes about how society is insignificant and chooses to exchange it for a society of nature. This can be related to McCandless because Thoreau is valuing his principles over people because he believes society is insignificant, just like McCandless. In Werner Herzog’s film Grizzly Man, a man named Timothy Treadwell ventures off into the wild to provoke grizzly bears. Timothy Treadwell can be seen as someone who values his principles over people in a way that he leaves everyone behind and risks his life for his own good. He chooses to be potentially killed by grizzly bears, more than his own life. The reader

As the fourth section progresses we are introduced to a variety of characteristics that define a rebel. My personal take was that you know you are truly rebel when you cannot be easily defined by stereotypes of a rebel. In addition, a rebellious person may rebel against multiple ideals but in rebelling against those ideals they support different ideals. Chris McCandless is a paragon of a rebel seen in his rebellion against societal norms but also his rebellion against characteristics of individuals that rebel against societal norms.

I am in agreement with Krakauer on the fact that Chris McCandless was not a sociopath

In particular Chris Mccandless should be supported for he had things happen to him that led up to the point where he wanted to go into the wild to get away from his old life and created a new one for himself to have more opportunities. Others may think he shouldn’t be supported just because he some bad flaws he had and also that he just left his sister who he actually got along with, but here are some reasons that are logical and reasonable to why Chris Mccandless should be supported.

Krakauer uses a constant tone throughout this novel and the wild. Krakauer tends to show empathy towards McCandless two to the similar life experiences and desires they have been through. both McCandless and Kraków I have difficulty with Mel authority figures, especially their fathers. “Like McCandless, figures of male authority aroused in me a confusing medley of corked fury and hunger” (Krakauer, 134). this quote shows that empathetic bond that cacao I had created with McCandless. The diction in this quote, such as “confusing medley,” portrays a tone of confusion to the readers. Krakauer seems to have seen much of himself in McCandless and needs closure to his death, causing him to take the same journey as McCanless and write a novel about

The line between rational and irrational thought is often blurred for some more than others. Usually when we cross this line into irrational thought our brain will let us know that what we are doing isn’t within reason. While many believe that Christopher McCandless was crazy and his ideas were ludicrous; I believe that he saw the line between rational and irrational thought very clearly, and that all though some of his ideas may have seemed crazy to some, he carried them out in sane body and mind. Chris was an extremist, a radical youth with different ways of thinking, and often we as a society tend to identify someone as crazy when we cannot comprehend the reasoning behind why a person would do something. Chris was not crazy, but he was

McCandless and McCunn's ventures into the wild had similar intentions and strategies. Although, the outcome of their ventures were slightly different.

Chris McCandless was a reckless idiot and there is no denying that basic truth. Chris McCandless was a man born into a middle class family. Chris had parents that loved him, a roof over his head, and food to eat. Despite all those riches he had, he threw them away. Chris was a very selfish man. Chris went off after he graduated college and “lived off the land”. Chris would travel to the coast of Mexico, the plains of Kansas, and the dunes of Nevada. Chris went on a final expedition to Alaska that cost him everything. In the following paragraphs I will fully detail how Chris was reckless, selfish, and naive. I will also explore how Chris tied his life to the beliefs of transcendentalism. One thing to not forget:

St. Francis of Assisi was a man who sought peace from the world and tried to bring

Chris displayed his arrogance all throughout his journey. His arrogance from the start was that he didn’t rely on Human materials. Humankind may not make things perfect every time but they make things because they need them. So Chris was being very arrogant by not using the things created just for his purpose by thinking he could do everything on his own and in the end that was what got him killed. But by the same standard anyone can understand Chris’s thinking. He wanted to ditch his old life so maybe he was trying to cut off ties to the world as well. If you take that the wrong way his death may seem like suicide suddenly, but from many other papers that is not implied. The majority think that it was just an unfortunate few events that led to his death. If Chris would have taken a few more resources his life possibly would have lasted longer than it did, and using his story wrote an inspiration book. But he died, so there’s no reason to play the game of “what-if” because it could go an infinite number of ways. His last major sign of arrogance shone once he got to Alaska and Jim Gallien dropped him off. He shook off Jim’s warning as well as other gear and proceeded to wander close to his

Chris McCandless abandoned the modern world and chose the wild because he believed that he could improve himself through living in the wild, and found the true happiness of the life. McCandless abandoned his wealthy family because of his complicated relationship with his father, and he was ashamed with his father’s adultery. Therefore, McCandless believed that human relationship was not the only thing that forms happiness, instead a man’s connection with the nature brings joy as well. He also believed the habitual lifestyle was not what people were meant to do, and people shouldn't have more possessions than what they need. For this reason, McCandless traveled with little effects. In addition, McCandless thought he could found the solution to his frustration with the adultery of his father, and found the true happiness for his life through escaping into the wild.

Mainly because of his father. For example, in chapter 14 and 15 of “Into The Wild” By Jon Krakauer, he discuss how simliar him and McCandlesss were alike. Krakauer and McCandless was similar in a way when it came to both of their fathers’. They both rebel against their fathers and ended up going on an adventure. A quote from Krakauer I perceive how they both felt about the expectations their fathers wanted of them; “but I was not a clone of my father… Instead, I felt oppressed by the old man’s expectations.. The revelation that he was merely human, and frightfully, so beyond my power to forgive (148 Krakauer ).” And how McCandless could not accept how his father wanted to used money to get Chris to be someone that he is not or control him. Another example for the distaste towards authority, “Like McCandless, figures of male authority aroused in me a confusing medley of cork fury and a hunger to please... If something captured undisciplined imagination, I pursued it with a zeal bordering on a obsession, and from the age of 17 until my late twenties... (134 Krakauer