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Similarities Between Mccandless And Henry David Thoreau

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Imagine being alone in the wild. This is what Chris McCandless and Henry David
Thoreau purposely put themselves through. But why did they do this? With such an abstract idea as they both had, there should be plenty of comparisons to discuss between the two of these men. Chris McCandless and Henry David Thoreau are comparable in what they learn, the people they affect, the reasons they leave society, and the success/failure that they experience during their lives.
One way that Henry David Thoreau and Chris McCandless are different is that they both left society for different reasons. Chris McCandless runs away from home because he believes that his parents have mistreated him, especially his father. He hates his father for living a double
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This also shows that Henry David Thoreau was inspired more by the
Transcendentalist movement while Chris was not, although he did have some Transcendentalist beliefs. When he was in Alaska, he became extremely upset that he did not make full use of a moose (which we later found out to be a caribou) that he hunted. The caribou was not preserved correctly, and this lead it to spoil (Krakauer 167). One of the main transcendentalist beliefs involves the preservation of nature, and he acknowledges this.
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A similarity between Henry David Thoreau and Chris McCandless is that they both learn and meet new people along their journeys. On Chris’s journey, in the final pages, it is mentioned that he leaves a note that says “HAPPINESS IS ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED” (Krakauer
189). This note alludes that although Chris had done everything that he wanted to do, in his final moments, he most likely had no one to share his happiness with. Henry David Thoreau

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