Into The Wild Transcendentalism

As the fourth section progresses we are introduced to a variety of characteristics that define a rebel. My personal take was that you know you are truly rebel when you cannot be easily defined by stereotypes of a rebel. In addition, a rebellious person may rebel against multiple ideals but in rebelling against those ideals they support different ideals. Chris McCandless is a paragon of a rebel seen in his rebellion against societal norms but also his rebellion against characteristics of individuals that rebel against societal norms.

Chris McCandless was smart, a straight A student, got accepted into Emory University, and decided to not apply his knowledge when he went into the wilderness of Alaska in 1992. Into the Wild, a biography written by Jon Krakauer, is about Chris’s story of after he graduated high school and went into the wild. Right after he went to high school, he traveled the country in his yellow datsun, met amazing people, and came back to finish college. After finishing college with a degree, he went hitchhiking across the country again and went into the alaskan wilderness, without ever coming back alive. Chris McCandless went into the wild unprepared with any good materials, he did not have a very good knowledge of what he was actually doing, and he left

The bold and brash approach on life by transcendentalists was truly an ambitious lifestyle. Such individuals like Henry David Thoreau, Chris McCandless, and Jon Krakauer have renounced all of their mainstream agendas to lead a more fundamental life, but not without the criticism other have faced. The actions portrayed in their novels demonstrate how important it is to incorporate others’ ideas when one’s own choices.

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.

In transcendentalism, living a simple live is significant to individuals. In the text From Walden, Henry David Thoreau advise that “simplicity” is the key to a free life and that we all should “keep our accounts on our thumbnail”(Thoreau 106). He states that people should pay less attention to materialism, instead pursue a simple and purposeful live. Thoreau does not consider money as fundamental when compared to nature and freedom. In the movie Into the Wild, Chris McCandless gets very angry when his parents offer him a new car as a gift because he has been everywhere with his old car and it works just fine; besides, he does not need a new one just because there are newer and cooler cars around. Chris keep saying that he does not want all those “things” from his parents. Obviously, Chris does not care much about material wealth and therefore he is too sick and tired of the society and his surrounding which

Into The Wild portrays a man who went on a fatal unforgettable journey through the alaska wilderness. Chris McCandless was a man with great courage and the ability to live on his own made him more of a hero going on his fatal journey. Many would say he was foolish or not thinking right, but that is not the case. The case here is simply a man with courage wanting to fulfill is beliefs through his journey.

Risks are a possibility of loss or injury; all humans at least once in their lifetime have to do something risky. If life has no risks, you’re not really living it, since we humans do not grow as a species (or society) if there is no challenge in life. People in this world must have challenge and struggle to overcome an obstacle in their life to discover the real world. This way a person will grow physically and most importantly, mentally, to never do something adventurous or take the easy way out is on them. Krakauer, Emerson and Thoreau all have their own ideas on risk, but they all have in common is that risk can change a person for the good or bad.

Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer, tells the story of a young man named Christopher McCandless who decided to go and survive in the wilderness of Alaska without correct preparation. McCandless was a man with as transcendentalist-like mindset, an adventurer, an explorer, and a hiker. He migrated away from civilization and society with the goal of living in solitude and living his life to the fullest through nature. The audience was introduced to McCandless’ views towards society through McCandless’ journey through Alaska, and the depressing yet inspiring events that led up to his death. Krakauer creates emotional appeals to connect him with McCandless to credit himself as a writer, as well as to develop the audiences’ feelings of McCandless. Krakauer

In the early 1990’s, Chris McCandless left his whole life behind to carry out a transcendental lifestyle. He hitchhiked up the entire West Coast, all the way to his final destination in Fairbanks, Alaska. Transcendentalism is a philosophy that has had a heavy impact on many people, including Chris McCandless, Henry David Thoreau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. These men shared the belief in the importance of individualism, simplicity, and exploration, which molded McCandless’s experience into a dramatic and fatal journey.

Chris McCandless abandoned the modern world and chose the wild because he believed that he could improve himself through living in the wild, and found the true happiness of the life. McCandless abandoned his wealthy family because of his complicated relationship with his father, and he was ashamed with his father’s adultery. Therefore, McCandless believed that human relationship was not the only thing that forms happiness, instead a man’s connection with the nature brings joy as well. He also believed the habitual lifestyle was not what people were meant to do, and people shouldn't have more possessions than what they need. For this reason, McCandless traveled with little effects. In addition, McCandless thought he could found the solution to his frustration with the adultery of his father, and found the true happiness for his life through escaping into the wild.

“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. Although it may seem as though Chris McCandless is immature or reckless, he is actually rather admirable for his ideals because they allow him to live a life he is happy with.

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.

Going out into the wild all by yourself can be nerve wracking and lonely. Jon Krakauer makes Chris McCandless seemed like a noble person who took the initiative to try to go out and live into the wild. The book Into the Wild written by Jon Krakauer, is about a teenager named Chris McCandless leaving society and traveling to Alaska by himself with nothing else but a bag of rice and a small .22 caliber gun. Chris is heroic because he went to Alaska by himself without any knowledge of Alaska and didn’t know any of the dangers of Alaska.

You can read, you can sit for hours and think about what is the meaning of life what is my purpose of living. But you’ll never experience it if you don’t understand the beauty of life until you experience it yourself.

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.