Freedom in Nature
In the 1990’s, a young man sets off to go on a Great Alaskan journey. This man's name was Chris McCandless, or what he liked to call himself on the road: Alexander Supertramp. McCandless was a bright individual who wanted to go against societal standards and live off hardly anything in an area that would bring him peace, in the Alaskan wilderness. Jon Krakauer tells McCandless’s story in the form of a book while Sean Penn tells this story in the form of a film, both entitled Into the Wild. They follow along with McCandless’s cross country journey of him meeting new people, experiencing the hitchhiking world, and going to new places. They follow him through some of his most troubling times, but also some of his best experiences that helped to build him into the person he was when he passed away in the Alaskan forest. The book and film both use artistic choices and various elements such as the use of McCandless’s journal entries and letters in Krakauer's book, and the use of music and camera movement in Penn's movie adaptation. They use these techniques in order to best emphasize that nature helps one to best connect to their true
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When McCandless is in the Alaskan forest, he writes journal entries to describe his experiences. Krakauer describes one entry as “unmistakably joyous: ‘CLIMB MOUNTAIN!’” (164). Krakauer depicts McCandless as excited and happy to climb the mountain, demonstrating how doing something involved and related to nature can make someone content and jovial. By McCandless capitalizing all of the letters for this journal entry, it does imply how truly happy he felt about being one with the wild. Krakauer then uses this to his advantage in order to portray just how joyous an individual can feel when immersed in the expansive
Starting from his childhood, Krakauer has highlighted a story that was told from McCandless’s sister; “he was very to himself. He wasn’t antisocial, he always had friends, and everybody liked him—but he could go off and entertain himself for hours. He didn’t seem to need toys or friends. He could be alone without being lonely.” (Krakauer, Jon. 1996).
Into the Wild was written by Jon Krakauer and describes the life of a young man named Christopher Johnson McCandless. Chris also went by the name of Alexander Supertramp, or Alex, to most people who he came across in order to stay off the grid. Chris ultimately abandoned his old way of life to achieve his long-term dream of visiting the Alaskan wilderness and living solely off the land. Throughout his journey, Chris hitchhiked his way to almost all of his locations.
From their he hitchhikes across the northwest, where he mostly lives on the streets and takes up a few jobs for little money.. On his journey he meets a few people who he grows close relationships with and maintains in contact with for the remainder of his short life. After two years pass of his freestyle traveling, McCandless gets the idea of pushing his mind and body to the extreme by living deep in the Alaskan wilderness, alone and with the little supplies he has. He prepares himself by researching edible plants as well as hunting. He then leaves South Dakota, the place that he has been working the past few months, to head up north.
"The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. " A very inspiring quote of Chris McCandless. Whether he was a drifter,genius, whack work, free soul, revolutionary, or artist, Christopher McCandless was one of a kind among men. At an age when most privileged children start their exhausting move toward turning into the following enormous thing, Christopher McCandless went the other way—he turned into no one important. His two-year drop into the farthest edges of society astounded and fascinated many, including creator Jon Krakauer.
The Alaskan Wilderness: cold, lonely and, for some people, their final resting place. John Krakauer’s book “Into the Wild” describes the story of Chris McCandless, who was a normal American man on the verge of entering adulthood with a college degree, over $20,000 in savings, and a beloved Datsun car who met his fate in Alaska. One day, he dropped everything to live alone, and eventually die alone, in the middle of nowhere, Alaska. Chris McCandless believed that conformity was too restrictive. He trusted that anyone could find true happiness and passion by leaving everything behind and starting a new lifestyle, which would allow for him to become free and independent.
He had read many books through his years, and when arriving in Alaska to camp out and survive in the wild, “The heaviest item in McCandless’s half-full backpack was his library: nine or ten paperbound books” (Krakauer 162). He gained much of his knowledge from his books, and depended upon them to develop his philosophy on life itself, often annotating them with lengthy, animated notes. “He had just finished reading Doctor Zhivago, a book that incited him to scribble excited notes in the margins and underline several passages…’HAPPINESS ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED’” (Krakauer 189). He was eager in learning about the world around him and how he was connected to it, and finding new ideas and new ways of thinking in his books.
In Jon Krakauer’s fiction narrative, Into the Wild, he portrays Chris McCandless as a self-reliant and thoughtless young man. Unfortunately, he sadly passed after a unprepared journey into the Alaskan wilderness. Through a closer examination on his actions and words it reveals he was a deeply appreciative and misunderstood person. McCandless showed his appreciation of the world with his love for nature.. During his travels he took great joy in the beauty of nature and the idea of living with such a gift.
In Into The wild, Krakauer narrates the last couple of journeys Mccandless had on his adventure to Alaska where he ultimately died. Mccandless Touched many people's lives through all of his journeys. Mccandless went on these journeys because he was confused in life when he figured out his dad had cheated on his mom. This changed Mccandless to the point he began to hate his parents. Mccandless had a lot of confidence in himself so he left on an adventure to find his identity.
Chris McCandless was a young and adventurous man, and at age twenty two, he set out to travel on his own in the American wilderness with only a ten pound bag of rice, a plant guide, a rifle with ammunition, and a camera. There’s much debate about this boy and his character, but a frequently asked question is whether he really embodied transcendentalism or if he was just a priveleged boy on an unprepared and reckless mission. Throughout Into the Wild, a nonfiction book by Jon Krakauer, his actions and reasoning are revealed through his adventures and thoughts. By the time Krakauer's journalistic exploration is over, McCandless is proven to just be a man who follows many transcendentalist influences. Chris McCandless grew up disagreeing with
According to John Krakauer in Into the Wild, he shows how McCandless and others have a unique perception of the wilderness because they have this awareness of free belonging to the wild. Their perspective has them in a reassurance of capturing their life in the wilderness, thinking about how it will change their whole perspective from daily struggles. In agreement with Leo Tolstoy in Into the Wild, “I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love. I felt in myself a superabundance of energy which found no outlet in our quiet life” (15).
The experience of relentless action itself is where one could conceivably find refuge, as even when the destination is reached, no further refuge is found. Simultaneously, while the author of Into The Wild, Jon Krakauer, depicted his experience as an adventurous youth, he also mentioned his perspective of actuality concerning the journey’s real association with refuge when he emphasizes how “It is easy, when you are young, to believe that what you desire is no less than what you deserve, to assume that if you want something badly enough, it is your God-given right to have it. When I decided to go to Alaska that April, like Chris McCandless, I was a raw youth who mistook passion for insight and acted according to an obscure, gap-ridden logic. I thought climbing the Devil's Thumb would fix all that was wrong with my life. In the end, of course, it changed almost nothing.
“Into the Wild” is a non-fiction book written by Jon Krakauer. It tells the story of Chris McCandless, a young man who ventured into the Alaskan wilderness in search of adventure and
“If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be.” ―Maya Angelou. Jon Krakauer’s true story titled Into the Wild is about a man who decides to throw away his old life and escape the rules of conventional society. Twenty-two-year-old Chris McCandless came from a well-to-do family in Virginia and, without warning, abandons everything. He changes his name, loses contact with his family, gives away his car and all his money, and begins a two-year long journey hitchhiking to Alaska where he eventually dies of starvation.
In Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, Chris McCandless completely abandons the society in which he resides and goes off the grid. More specifically, he leaves his family, belongings, and societal expectations behind to pursue his purpose in life: head towards Alaska. After the death of McCandless, Krakauer delves into people’s opinions on his voyage; Many criticize what he did, saying that he was arrogant as he went into the wild completely unprepared. However, others praise McCandless’s courage and respect what he did. Although many believe that Chris appears to be an arrogant narcissist, he truly renders an admirable hero, because he went on a risky journey into the unknown with few resources to escape the oppression he faced – something many
Based on a real story, Into the Wild can make us think from different perspectives about what the main character Christopher McCandless did. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer is a dramatic but also remarkable story from a young, newly graduated, college student that escaped for a long wild journey but never came back. As time passes throughout the book, the reader may notice how the main character interacts with society and nature, finally McCandless dies in the wild but even though he was struggling for survival he died happy. Some people never get out of their comfort zone, others are tired of it and retire from their comfort zone to have different experiences in life, some are good enough or some are terrible.