Chris Mccandless Transcendentalism

Thoreau asserts slavery is a ¨gross¨ and immoral practice. His fear of not being divine and immortal allows him to dislike slavery. Therefore, Thoreau would support abolition as he believed owning slaves would compromise a man 's divinity, a great fear of his. Slavery also limits the spiritual growth of the enslaved individuals, thus opposing Thoreau 's belief all people should be exposed to spiritual advancements. It was also deemed frivolous by Thoreau.

Was Chris McCandless a true transcendentalist? Transcendentalism is a system developed by Immanuel Kant, based on the idea that, in order to understand the nature of reality, one must first examine and analyze the reasoning process that governs the nature of experience. Influenced by romanticism, Platonism, and Kantian philosophy, it taught that divinity pervades all nature and humanity, and its members held progressive views on feminism and communal living. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau were central figures. In Jon Krakauer’s novel, Into the Wild, McCandless is viewed as a transcendentalist. The characteristics of transcendentalism is individual vs society and the connection between human and nature.

The movie, The Incredibles, is a Disney film about a family of superheros trying to maintain their secret identities. They try to maintain ordinary, regular lives after the use of superpowers is suddenly banned by the government for the safety of their cities. All was well and fairly normal until their family was directly targeted by a new villain, Buddy Pine (aka. Syndrome). Despite their progress in the area of living normal lives, they’re throw in a series of tough situations that require the whole family to tap into who they truly are. The Incredibles is a fantastic example of transcendentalism due to the presence of both nonconformity and individualism.

Throughout history there has been a constant, man’s desire to experience new things. Two men that come to mind are Chris McCandless and Henry David Thoreau. Both men shared a similar reason for traveling into the wild. The differences in their journey’s that led to McCandless’s death and Thoreau’s success is the preparation and approach to the journey’s. Even though Chris failed on his journey he still was very much like Thoreau wanting to leave society in search for enlightenment. The two men may have had different approaches, but their ideals were very similar.

“So many people live in unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation” (57). Chris McCandless was determined to not be one of those men, he strived for a life in solitude, away from the demands of society. For that reason he went on an epic transcendental experience that took him from Mexico to Alaska. Along the way, he met and made an impact on peoples’ lives, people like Wayne Westenberg and Ronald Franz. Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild discusses Chris’s journey, and makes the reader question Chris’s reasons for going out into the wild. In the novel, Chris did some dangerous things, such as kayaking across a country and not taking nearly enough supplies, he insisted it was all part of the journey though.

Transcendentalism is a highly competitive world of the market revolution which strongly encouraged the identification of American freedom without any restraints on people who were seeking financial improvement and personal development. It was a world in which regional developments along with the market revolution crushed traditional and social borders. For example moving from one place to another was a common characteristic of the American life. Transcendentalism believed in individual judgment over existing social traditions and institutions.

Transcendentalism is present in today’s culture in ways we do not even notice. It is in our music, television, and movies. These parts of today 's culture show free thought, nonconformity, and the role of nature.

Transcendentalists were a movement of this time that had both its ups and downs. In other words failure and successes. When it comes to reform movements the things most people really care about is the success of it and if it made any real change to people during the time period. Transcendentalism had an effect on people of the time that really started something completely unheard of and misunderstood. What transcendentalists did was take what was known and look far beyond it. Through literature, speeches, and even teaches that took place in classrooms of the time, people were fascinated and curious about what they were spreading and practicing. It was a quite successful movement until more and more time passed and people realized it wasn’t

In the short story, “Death of an Innocent” by Jon Krakauer, Chris McCandless travels into the Alaskan wilderness with the intention of relying completely on himself. In the true spirit of transcendentalism, McCandless travels to escape the bounds of society and to remove himself from a materialistic world. Many argue, however, that Chris McCandless was not a transcendentalist because he travels to exotic lands as a means of avoidance, but actually, Chris McCandless is the epitome of a transcendentalist. Transcendentalists, however, rely on themselves and nature to survive and do not depend on material items. Transcendentalists romanticize individualism and believe that intuition is the best guide through life. McCandless shows multiple examples of these transcendentalist traits throughout the story, although there are times where he takes transcendentalism to the extreme.

The transcendental movement, which reached the height of its popularity in the 1830’s and 1840’s, inspired many people to live essentially, without unnecessary material possessions, and to practice civil disobedience by breaking laws that one feels are unjust. Chris McCandless, Alexander Supertramp, is one of the most well known people in recent history inspired by transcendentalism because he, just like Henry David Thoreau, took the ideas of Ralph Waldo Emerson and put them into action. When Chris fully applies the principles of transcendentalism, he enhances his life by giving him the opportunity to stop pretending to be someone that he is not and pursue a more authentic Chris McCandless.

If there is one person in the past or present that lived a truly transcendental life, many would say it was Alexander Supertramp, otherwise known as Chris McCandless. Throughout the 1990s, this man took transcendentalism to a new level that not many people in this day and age had seen before. In different points in his life, he exhibited all 8 of the main keys of transcendentalism. This paper will touch on just three of those, starting with reducing dependence on property. This is probably the number one key that is seen the most from McCandless in Into The Wild.

Chris, however, had no interest in pursuing a suburban lifestyle of comfort. He was bored with the life he found himself in. The life of being financially stable, and the life of conforming to a materialistic society, and the only place he could find his freedom was in the wild. As he inched his way towards Alaska, McCandless lived the life of a squatter. Only holding on the necessities, and working when needed. His lifestyle during that time betrayed everything he originally had: inherited money, a college degree, a home, a family. At the beginning of his journey, after graduating from college, he gave all of his bank savings to charity, burned all his cash, and abandoned his car and possessions. McCandless would reside in abandoned RV homes, in his tent in the middle of the desert, and hitchhike his way to Alaska. Rarely did he ever accept money or equipment from those who attempted to help him. Rather, he would earn it himself by taking up any jobs, no matter how dirty it

4 years after Christopher Johnson McCandless death in the Alaskan wilderness in 1992, Jon Krakauer beautifully depicts every moment of the tumultuous times leading up to Chris’s demise. Fed up with ill intentions of his peers and society, McCandless departs for the dark corners of the country. Since McCandless held nature close to his heart, and preached against the object-oriented society he lived in, Chris can be classified as a contemporary transcendentalist.

In modern society it is important to be unique and have originality in order to be an individual. Emerson says that if we copy another person's work we are not reflecting on ourselves but just the experiences of another person. He teaches us that we should be unique, think for ourselves, be independent, and to be proud of ourselves. Also that if people are not original then they will just be repeating another person’s legacy and they will just be in their shadow and will not be ahead of them. There are many things in modern culture that is not original and are just copies of something from the old. In modern society there are many dangers conforming to society because it would stifle people's originality, causes imitation,

Henry David Thoreau is one of the primary promoters of the transcendentalist movement and has been inspiring people to take on the transcendentalist lifestyle ever since the mid 1800’s. Mccandless was an admirer of Henry’s philosophy but he wasn’t as fully immersed in his work and ideals as Thoreau was to his own. His intentions were not as closely aligned to the movement as Thoreau’s and the difference between these icons are clearly visible.