In the book “Into The Wild” by Jon Krakauer tells the story of Chris McCandless a curious minded person who pursued an idea about living in the wilderness on his own. Many people believed that Chris McCandless was just a selfish and crazy person with an outrageous idea. Although he had some personal issues which caused him to leave. Two main issues were the emotional damage from his parents which was the cause of the family differences within each other and not being able to understand one another. He also liked to keep to himself most of his time even when he was young, many people believe he was just selfish but I beg to differ, I believe he did this because . Chris McCandless was a very intelligent young man and well educated. For example his sister mentions“Chris brought home good grades” (114). Even though having such important qualities he still managed to gain the idea in leaving a good life, to heading and living in a forest on his own. Chris had what people call a good life and family but he believed the complete opposite of what others thought he had. Throughout the story …show more content…
For example his sister mentions that he would be unhappy with any parents and that he did not like the of parents in any way (115). In the story his parents buy him a new car but he did not like it because he wanted to have an older car like everyone else had. I believe that his parents tried to buy his love as I mentioned in the sentence before with Chris’s parents buying him a new car. His parents also pushed him into going to college but he did not like the idea of college and states that he does not want to go. Chris’s idea of college was that it was pointless, a waste of time and money. He also tells his parents that did not plan to go to college but his parents constantly got on his case about going. At times forcing an idea on someone can cause them to live an unhappy life and make do things they wouldn’t normally
Many individuals decide to live their life in solitary; though, only a few choose to live in the wild. The book, Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer vividly paints the adventurous trek Chris McCandless went on. From the friends he made, to the hardships he went through, McCandless is portrayed as a friendly, sociable person despite the fact that he was a vagabond. Other than McCandless, there are even more individuals that have taken the risks to live in the wilderness such as, Jon Krakauer and Everett Ruess. All three of them had both similarities and differences between their own qualities as a person and their journey.
Throughout Into the Wild, Krakauer portrays Christopher McCandless as an infallibly eager young man hoping to distance himself from the society he so obviously loathes, to "live off the land," entirely independent of a world which has "conditioned [itself] to a life of security." Chris, contrarily to this depiction, is disparagingly viewed by some as a "reckless idiot" who lacked the sense he needed to survive in the Alaskan wilderness. This derogatory assessment of Chris's mindset is representative of the society he hopes to escape and contains all the ignorance that causes him to feel this way. Nevertheless, he is misjudged by these critics, allowing Krakauer to hold the more accurate interpretation of Chris's character, his goals, and his accomplishments.
McCandless used the idea of escaping society from “Walden” by Henry David Thoreau and tried to mesh it together with the ideas of solitude and isolation to form his own beliefs. McCandless misinterpreted what Thoreau was saying. Thoreau states, “I had not lived there a week…It is true, I fear, that others may have fallen into it, and so helped to keep it open.” (Thoreau 3).Thoreau specifically states in this quote that he does not want others to follow or even go do what he did. He also did build the cabin a few miles away from a town because he knew he would go back one day. Thoreau was a sane person in doing this because crazy people stray too far away from society despite the consequences. He believed that he had other things to do with his life and not spending a minute more in that lifestyle. McCandless still went out into the wilderness away from society against Thoreau’s words. Chris was crazy to shun s...
Although, Chris McCandless may be seen as stupid and his ideals uncanny, he gave up everything to follow his heart he escaped the world that would have changed him, he wrote his own tale to feel free, and he left a conformist world to indulge in true happiness. How many people would just give up their lives, family, material goods, to escape into a world of perfect solitude and peace; not many and Chris was one of those that could and he became and inspiration. “The idea of free personality and the idea of life as sacrifice” (187).
McCandless was a person who loved hiking he loved the outside. He wasn't anti social he wasn't someone who put himself in a bubble to block the outside world. But Chris felt that the materialistic things in his life were the things that made him the person that he was. So decided to let everything go, start a new life in the mountains in Alaska without no one in sight.
Chris McCandless went to the wild to live a complete life. Chris read something by Thoreau; about life and how people do not live “awake” or to the fullest of life. McCandless wanted to live life the way he wanted to. He could live life his way, only if he could do so away from society and laws. Chris’s idea was to live life laid back, how he wants, which was to feel awake as influenced by Thoreau.
Every young person at a point dreams of breaking away from their parents and building their own particular lives. They long to desire to take after their fantasies and hope they can sort themselves out at some point. Like a wise young fellow once said "Don't settle down and sit in one place. Move around and be nomadic, make each day a new horizon" this men was Chris McCandless. Yes,McCandless strived for high aspirations and a thirst for freedom just like any other regular kid Which eventually led him to leave his well organized life to travel and live off the area, which i was really taken after the words of his literary heroes, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman. which all affected Chris in the some way which was
Chris McCandless saw the wilderness as an escape from reality or as a better reality where he could be free of the pressures of life. “At long last he was unencumbered, emancipated from the stifling world of his parents and peers, a world of abstraction and security and material excess, a world in which he felt grievously cut off from the raw throb of existence” (Krakauer 22). He thought that being isolated in the wilderness would provide liberation from the woes of existing in society.
John Krauker wrote a book and Sean Penn made a film about Chris McCandless’s journey Into the Wild. McCandless has a different point of view about life, but we all have a different view about everything. I don’t agree with Callarman’s statement that said, “McCandless was bright and ignorant at the same time. He had no common sense…” was wrong because I don’t think that he was crazy. I just think he had a different view on life, then the rest of us. He said the things that we all think about, but we are just scared to say anything. We all just fall into the way society wants us to be when he was different and followed his own thoughts. Chris should be admired because he went out to find himself and wanted to get away from what everyone else wanted to be.
...en writing a book based on ethos, logos and pathos, it is very challenging for an author to stay completely objective. In Krakauer’s case, his bias comes out strongly in certain chapters, sometimes detracting from his argument. Some faults exist in his credibility and logic, but his use of emotional appeal makes up for what those areas lack. Krakauer does an excellent job developing the character of Chris McCandless. The author brings him back to life with his descriptions and is able to make him tangible to the reader. The discussion over what McCandless's thoughts were when he went on his fatal trek will continue as long as his memory lasts. Ultimately, the readers of Into the Wild are left to form their opinion of McCandless, with Krakauer nudging them along the way.
McCandless views his life as pointless and not enjoyable, that there is more than a suburban lifestyle and American materialism. Christopher decides by choice to reject the lifestyles that his parents had laid down for him. He detaches himself from his family, leaving behind his parents and the upper middle-class suburban setting in which he was raised. As well as, donating his college savings to charity, abandoning his car in the desert and burning his paper money on the desert floor. McCandless's energy, vision and arrogance drives to kill his perspective of life. Ultimately leading him to leave the nurtured world he was raised in to gain new viewpoint of what life is and what it could be for him. It was up to Chris to leave behind the safe environment his parents had raised him in, it was his decision and his control that drove him to do such questionable actions. He had chose to give up what was made for him; leave behind college money that could have given him a great education, to abandon his car that could have led him to a new beginning and burn his money that was his source of income. Christopher McCandless had control of what he owned, and decided himself to continue with life they way he wanted it to be and with the way he viewed the world
...elligence to help him last an extended period of time in the Alaskan wilderness. In truth, McCandless was someone who wanted to find himself. He wanted to get away from a life in which he could not find fulfilment, which is something many others would be able to relate to. Although most people would not go to such extremes to find fulfilment, everyone has a different way of finding happiness and going after what their heart truly desires. For McCandless, his desire was to live out in the wild. Unfortunately, this man of great character did not succeed in getting out alive. However, that does not change the fact that he tried. McCandless knew what he wanted for himself and he persisted, regardless of the obstacles he faced. He put an incredible amount of effort into accomplishing his goals and never gave up, and that is why Christopher McCandless is someone to admire.
Chris McCandless lived a life in which he disgusted by human civilization, and left it, eventually being led to his death in Alaska. McCandless entered the Alaskan wilderness severely unprepared, a brutal error that cost him his life. In the novel, Into the Wild by John Krakauer, Chris glances into his mindset by they way of his journal, history, and analysis of his life reveals that Chris McCandless as an arrogant and judgemental narcissist, while not mentally unstable, had a condescending attitude towards society and perished not only from his reckless stupidity but also from his unparalleled ego. Chris McCandless was immune to love and had an obsession with nature and society, him showing characteristics that created the appearance of McCandless
...emselves. They endure mosquitoes and rain and tough walking and bad river crossings and the possibility of bears. The burden the pilgrims carry to the bus is so heavy, laden with their frailties and hopes and desires, with their lives that don’t quite satisfy. Well, so many of them are young, and they’re lost, somehow, just as he was.” What makes Chris McCandless such a hero to young men is that he is easily relatable to those young men. As Neal Karlinsky writes of Chris McCandless,“McCandless tramped his way across North America determined to live completely free of the trappings of modern society. He was intoxicated by nature and the idea of a great Alaskan adventure — to survive in the bush totally on his own. In his last postcard to a friend, he wrote: "I now walk into the wild."
Chris McCandless was a graduate from college whose dream was to go into the Alaskan wilderness and live there to get an overall experience of living off the land. McCandless wanted to experience how to hunt and gather everything that he needed to live in the Alaskan Wilderness. However was it a good idea when Mccandless went into the wild. Many people on his adventure tried to help him by giving him some equipment or buy him some because he wasn't prepared for his adventure. After McCandless’s death to this date people would say that McCandless is an idiot or stupid for not being prepared for the Alaskan wilderness.