Chris Mccandless Research Paper

As an example, McCandless tells his friend Ron Franz “you do not need me or anyone else around to bring this new kind of light in your life. It is simply waiting out there for you to grasp it, and all you have to do is reach for it” (Krakauer 57-58). Through this letter to Franz, McCandless is trying to help Franz find his own inner wisdom.

It was clear that McCandless was ill-prepared for many of the situations that he was presented with throughout his adventure to Alaska. McCandless was very passionate about pursuing his dreams to live off the land. Although, if he wanted to survive long enough to enjoy living in one of the most harshest environments on earth, it would have only made sense that he carefully planned out every detail of his trip to prevent him from dying. However on the contrary, it was as if he had no plans or strategies to prevent this from happening. The ultimate sacrifice McCandless paid from unpreparedness was death.

No longer to be poisoned by civilization he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become lost in the wild. Alexander Supertramp May 1992” (Krakauer, 163). McCandless was also known for his hatred of money. He believed to be inherently evil, and made people cautious and greedy. He hated materials and possessions generally as well.

The reader gets to join McCandless in his adventure across the country as he invents a new life for himself. He embraces the ideas and morals of Thoreau and Emerson in his journey. In the book, a man by the man by the name of Westerberg discusses about how McCandless is not destroying his possessions and journey around the wild because the wild he is suicidal or unintelligent. “You could tell right away that Alex was intelligent… He always had to know the absolute right answer before he could go on to the next thing.”

One may say that McCandless’ violent childhood is what caused his downfall. McCandless may have even had the right idea, separating himself from his family, but due to his fragile state of mind he may have gone to too much of an extreme. He ended up taking the policies and principles of transcendentalism too far, which is really what resulted in his death. A concept that transcendentalism goes strongly against is materialism, a principle that may have saved his life. He was so anti materialistic in fact, that he refused to even have a phone or form of communication, this ultimately could have saved his life.

“He wasn’t a nutcase” (85). Why does Krakauer use this euphemism? Krakauer uses this euphemis because he believes that McCandless wasn’t insane, he was clever just the way he is. He follows what he wanted to be and what he wanted to become, he didn’t back just because people said he wasn’t like other people, who would have jobs and build a family.

Considered the “Father of Western Philosophy”, the great Aristotle is quoted as saying “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” This is something that, a young intelligent man in the early 1990’s took to heart, as he set out on a great journey to know himself. Chris McCandless, this young man, however took a different path than most in terms of discovering himself by attempting to abandon society and live off the land in rural Alaska. Chris’s journey throughout his brief adulthood, should be celebrated due to his pursuit of self discovery, and finding the source of true happiness. However we must acknowledge his decision to go into the unforgiving wilderness ill-prepared and the way he rejected true companionship in his travels pre-Alaskan adventure should not be ignored.

McCandless focuses his life around himself and is egotistical. The reason he may think only of himself is due to his ability to detach himself from society’s norms. He was in a position to do so by returning to nature and leaving cities and industries behind. It was his own choice to become an independent individual and break free from the chains of society. McCandless “tried to follow” his “dream” and realized them (Krakauer 96).

Nature is shown in this manner, because it causes one to be completely isolated as they will be able to find their ultimate freedom with themselves. One can find their true identity and realize that materials do not make them the person they are, it is the experiences they encounter. McCandless’s journey into the wilderness shows that he was ready to change the way he was living and his surroundings. Changing his lifestyle, and going by another name, shows that he was rejecting the values forced upon him by his parents’, and that he wants to start creating values for himself. Nature played a huge part in allowing McCandless to reach his ultimate freedom by serving as a character itself.

In the 19th and 20th century transcendentalism was a new and exciting topic that caused tremendous controversy. In the novel Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, Chris McCandless was a man with a very unique character. In more detailed words Chris McCandless was a transcendentalist. His actions and moods played a big part in his life, from beginning to end. He was a transcendentalist because of his self-reliance, confidence and non-conformity.

“Into the Wild,” contains the story of Christopher Johnson McCandless, an adventurous young man who perished in the Alaskan brush. His story has captured the imaginations of people across the world, perhaps none more so than that of his biographer, Jon Krakauer. Krakauer sees McCandless as an adventurous, possibly brilliant young man who left civilization in search of the greater meaning of life. In the author 's note Krakauer makes it clear that he won 't be an “impartial biographer,” the story is too personal. The similarities between Krakauer and McCandless are difficult to ignore.

Raplh Emerson, Henry Thoreau, Jon Krakauer, and Michael Donova were all believers in a theory called transcendentalism. Krakauer wrote a non fictional book about a boy who went of on an adventure to Alaska and Donovan wrote a poem about himself. Knowing this information they do not seem to be comparable with each other, but can be. Krakauers’ book is about a young man from a welthy family who decided one day to hitchhike into Alaska and walked alone into the the wilderness where he died. Along the way he met alot of interesting people and seen a lot of great places and lands throughout the country.

McCandless and America In August 1992 a the body of Christopher Johnson McCandless was found in a bus in Alaska by two moose hunters. His story was traced back and written. McCandless left his friends, family, and life behind him to survive the Alaskan wild alone. Chris McCandless found the American dream by realising he should have shared his happiness with the ones that he loved.

Matthew Power in The Cult of Chris McCandless points out the "enigma of Chris McCandless" through the themes of "self-invention, risk, and our complex relationship to the natural world  while McCandless may have been a visionary man who wished to become one of a higher thinking and knowledge but through the mesh of lies that shield him he is only presented as an "unprepared fool, a greenhorn who had fundamentally misjudged the wilderness he'd wanted so desperately to commune with”. McCandless's hubris was one of the many reasons he did not survive his journey. He was too caught up in the pursuit of a dream that when it came down to acting upon it he was unable to succeed and fell under. There are many ways McCandless could've saved himself and got care and possible survived from his ordeal, one of the more obvious ways was to get up and leave.

The second theme within this story is clearly about Spiritual connection between human and nature. Through out the entire story, McCandless searches for true freedom that was blocked by the society. He considers that nature is the true place of his freedom, and where his soul belongs to. This is obvious from his action of living in the wild of Alaska, but it is also analyzed by the writer Krakauer. “McCandless went into the wilderness not primarily to ponder nature or the world at large but, rather, to explore the inner country of his own soul.”