Chris Mccandless In Into The Wild By Jon Krakauer

Many criticizers of Chris McCandless believe that he was so naive and ill-prepared for his adventure to Alaska that it was what ended up costing him his life in the end. Some would disagree with that opinion and say he was courageous and admired that he followed his dreams and ambitions. In the author’s note of “Into The Wild” Jon Krakauer states, “Some readers admired the boy immensely for his courage and noble ideals; others fulminated that he was a reckless idiot, a wacko, a narcissist who perished out of arrogance and stupidity” (Authors Note). In my opinion, McCandless was prepared for this adventure, knew what risks he was going to face, and therefore wasn’t naive about his journey. When McCandless first started his journey he may have

Many thought he was ignorant and didn’t think through any of the risks enough to survive off of the land, but what they didn’t realize is that he wanted it to be difficult. He wanted a challenge, not just an adventure but something that would test him in a way society doesn’t, “But he was sufficiently skilled to last for sixteen weeks on little more than his wits and ten pounds of rice. And he was fully aware when he entered the bush that he had given himself a perilously slim margin for error. He knew what was at stake” (182). If he had wanted an easy going trip he would’ve brought more food, clothes, equipment, etc. He didn’t though because that wasn’t his dream; his goal was to find out if it was possible in today’s society to live off of the land and nothing

Just because McCandless’s life withered away there doesn’t necessarily have to mean the man was naive, now does it? Yes, he starved to death but that’s not the whole story. What is said to have happened is that he ate some bad seeds that caused his body to reject nutrients and eventually starve him to death , “The plant that poisoned him wasn’t toxic, per se; McCandless simply had the misfortune to eat moldy seeds. An innocent mistake, it was nevertheless sufficient to end his life” (194). This statement has then been disproved after Krakauer published the book due to further investigation and research, but what still remains true is that the seeds were not safe to have eaten in McCandless’s health condition. Now that may make him sound naive about plants of the area but the catch is that there was a little amount of poisonous amino acids in the seeds, something his guidebook didn’t mention. His death wasn’t the result of being unknowledged, it was simply a misfortunate mistake that anyone, besides probably a highly trained botanist, could’ve made since it was a kind of poison that had only affected a few cases of starving