Chris Mccandless In Into The Wild, By Jon Krakauer

In some ways, Chris McCandless of Krakauer’s Into the Wild, acts as the epitome of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s ideals within his essay “Self-Reliance.” McCandless, who has grown into quite a celebrity, abandoned his family’s bourgeois values and sought to discover the terrain of his soul through an Alaskan Odyssey. Only months later, a moose hunter stumbled upon his corpse within a bus. Critics often chalk his death up as a warning to young adolescents looking for adventure, while the aforementioned adolescents idolize his journey. Despite the harsh denunciations and hero-worship, McCandless acted simply as his own person by disregarding society’s views and looking for his own thoughts in solitude, thus embodying Emerson’s “Self-Reliance.” McCandless, like most young people, had the unfortunate affliction of immortality. Rather, he believed he was invincible as evidenced from his reckless actions. Throughout the novel, he acted single-minded and idealistic

He does not condone the idea of being eremitic, rather he believes that solitude allows people to discover their own principles and virtues. Thus, McCandless seemed to serve as the manifestation of Emerson’s self-reliance. He subjected himself to solitude, not because of his distaste of people, but to be entirely focused on his search for himself without the distraction of others. He acted in a completely selfish manner, abandoning his family to worry so that he could find himself and the virtues he wanted to represent. Despite this, there is something admirable in his determination to fulfill his goals and to push his limits. Therefore, McCandless does not fit into the role of either a hero or a tragic hero. Instead, Chris McCandless was simply his own person, a human being, on a search to find his identity apart from society’s typical