Chris Mccandless In Into The Wild By Jon Krakauer

422 Words2 Pages

The past experiences of the main character, Chris McCandless, had an extraordinary effect on his life and the gradual end he met in Fairbanks bus 142. Between Chris and his father, Walt, there was a lot of tension. Chris had always been livid towards his father for his actions that put a massive strain on the whole family. Ever since that tragic event occurred, Chris’s childhood was never the same. This event influenced his personality, similar to how his early exposure to the wild also impacted him. The McCandless family often went on vacations from the shores of the eastern coast line, to the vast mountains of Colorado; here, Chris discovered his passion for the wild. If Chris were to experience different events in his past, the novel “Into the Wild”, may never …show more content…

In the summer between his sophomore and junior years at Emory University, Chris learned from family members settled in El Segundo, California, that Walt cheated on his mother, named Billie. Walt began his affair with his ex-wife named Marcia after Chris was born, dividing his time between two families, two divergent lifestyles. Krakauer writes, “He later declared to Carnie and others that the deception committed by Walt and Billie made his ‘entire childhood seem like a fiction’”(84). Chris exploited his anger with silence and and withdrawal from his parents. An example of this behavior is when Chris traveled solo to Fairbanks, Alaska for the summer of 1989 and only sent his family a total of two cards with substantially vague descriptions of his journeys on each. Chris’s apartment in Atlanta was vacated and his odyssey was in progress, he was finally free from the influence of others. Krakauer writes, “At long last he was unencumbered, emancipated from the stifling world of his parents and peers”(18). Walt’s affair with Maria played a role in why Chris left society to live on his own terms,

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