Main Themes In Christopher Mccandless's Into The Wild

“The sea's only gifts are harsh blows, and occasionally the chance to feel strong. Now I don't know much about the sea, but I do know that that's the way it is here. And I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong. To measure yourself at least once. To find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions. Facing the blind deaf stone alone, with nothing to help you but your hands and your own head.” – Christopher McCandless, Into the Wild

“I can sing a true song about myself, tell of my travels” (Line 1-2) and in this lyric poem

that is exactly what the reader is faced with themes about human nature, life and God “The

Seafarer” is a monologue from an old man at sea, alone. The main theme in The Seafarer is

isolation and exile and the speaker talks in a negative tone exile but this can do more good for

the soul then most people assume. Everyman struggles with life and different hardships this

poem compares the fear of the sea to everyday hardships of every human being. The key to this

situation is not to surrender to fear and the author shows this idea throughout the poem that we

should not be fearing of this world but rather surrender to God. Exile isn’t always bad although

suffering hurts man spirit is does more good then constant happiness and power. We have to beat

the walls God has set in our fate believes the sailor and in this poem he doesn’t exactly that to

become and better follower of the Lord but more importantly then that a better being as a whole.

The author shows the reader the sea just as the sailor does as death, but more than death

as a chance to do something with their lives and be fulfilled through the...

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...n to me eager and unsatisfied; the solitary bird screams,

irresistible, urges the heart to the whale's way over the stretch of the seas.” (Line 60-66).

“Two years he walks the earth. No phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes. Ultimate freedom. An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road. Escaped from Atlanta. Thou shalt not return, 'cause "the West is the best." And now after two rambling years comes the final and greatest adventure. The climactic battle to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual pilgrimage. Ten days and nights of freight trains and hitchhiking bring him to the Great White North. 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

Work Cited

Krakauer, Jon. Into the Wild. New York: Anchor, 1997. Print.