Chris McCandless was still just a young man when he decided to drastically alter his life through the form of a child’s foolishness. However, Chris had not known at the time just how powerful his testimony against his father’s authority, society, or maybe even his own lifestyle was going to be revolutionary throughout not only Alaska,not even the lower 48, but the world. The story of Chris McCandless is a much talked about debate on topics of safety and preparedness in the wild, these things forever associated with the boy who was a little too eager for a death wish. Today, Chris is remember as a fool or a hero. The fool, a boy who allowed himself to be drowned in a fictional world inspired by his readings,dying because he ignored he was just a normal human being or the hero who set out to become something more. Chris McCandless is regarded as being something as a spiritual figure almost as a cult hero, some call him a disillusioned fool, some call him a great adventurer, and the debate still continues. As Matthew Power calls in his article, an article where he tells the story of McCandless,“The debate falls into two camps: Krakauer's visionary seeker, the tragic hero who dared to live the unmediated life he had dreamed of and died trying; or, as many Alaskans see it, the unprepared fool, a greenhorn who had fundamentally misjudged the wilderness he'd wanted so desperately to commune with.” Like so many stories covering Christopher McCandless’ death, both ends of the argument are discussed in an unfavored manner in the hopes to help develop an opinion on the McCandless story. This open ended question can only be answered open-endedly based on what the readers base for themselves as covered stories intend. Like Power has done, ... ... middle of paper ... ...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." Works Cited Krakauer, Jon. Into the Wild. New York: Anchor, 1997. Print.
Although it may be true that Chris McCandles was stubborn, people should consider that he had family problems, he loved nature and he also had an adventurous spirit. I believe that the motives that led him to the wild were family problems and emotional damage as well as his love of nature and his adventurous spirit. In Chris’s journal it seemed like he had lived for 113 days in that “magic bus” but in his last days he had written that “death looms” and that he was “too weak to walk out”. There are many evidence that connect with family problems as well as his adventurous spirit. As I go on with this essay I will state my theory on why Chris was led into the wild as well as evidence that support my claim.
The epigraphs presented by Krakauer before each chapter of the memoir Into the Wild dive deep into the life of Chris McCandless before and after his journey into the Alaskan wilderness. They compare him to famous “coming of age characters” and specific ideas written by some of his favorite philosophers. These give the reader a stronger sense of who Chris was and why he made the decision to ultimately walk alone into the wild.
When Jon Krakauer published a story about the death of a young man trekking into the Alaskan frontier in the January 1993 issue of Outside magazine, the audience’s response to Christopher McCandless’s story was overwhelming. Thousand of letters came flooding in as a response to the article. Despite the claims, especially from the native Alaskans, questioning McCandless’s mental stability and judgement, it soon becomes clear that McCandless was not just "another delusional visitor to the Alaskan frontier" (4). As Krakauer retells the life of Christopher McCandless and gives his own take on the controversy around McCandless’s death in Into The Wild, the reader also creates his own opinion on both McCandless and Krakauer’s argument. Krakauer
Christopher McCandless was a hurt soul indeed. He used his knowledge of freedom and spirituality that he saw in author’s writings to take it out of context and explore the wilderness on his own. Seeking a way out of his unfortunate hardship in a dysfunctional family he set out to achieve living on his own within his own thoughts in the Alaskan wilderness. I believe that Chris McCandless was crazy, and he was somewhat unaware in the reality of his decisions. Chris was bright yet made bad decisions, he could make friends easily, but left impressions on them, and he didn’t know enough about living in the wild which would ultimately cause his death.
A young man, in his twenties, sets off into the wild completely disregarding his family and his past life and takes on a whole new personality. This perfectly explains Chris McCandless and the journey he initially set out on. He was a young man seeking self-acceptance and peace, and he looked for it in all of the different places that he visited. Visiting these places made Chris more and more hungry for a challenge. He planned on leaving the comfort of a home and setting out into the Alaskan wilderness, where he would eventually die.
Chris McCandless was just a victim of his own obsession. The novel "Into The Wild" written by John Krakauer revealed the life of a young bright man named Chris McCandless who turned up dead in Alaska in summer 1992. In the novel, John Krakauer approached carefully McCandless's life without putting too much authorial judgment to the readers. Although Chris McCandless remained an elusive figure throughout the novel, I can see Chris McCandless as a dreamy young idealist who tries to follow his dream but failed because of his innocent mistake which prove to be fatal and irreversible. Still, Chris McCandless's courage and passion was something that we should all be proud of.
Jon Krakauer, fascinated by a young man in April 1992 who hitchhiked to Alaska and lived alone in the wild for four months before his decomposed body was discovered, writes the story of Christopher McCandless, in his national bestseller: Into the Wild. McCandless was always a unique and intelligent boy who saw the world differently. Into the Wild explores all aspects of McCandless’s life in order to better understand the reason why a smart, social boy, from an upper class family would put himself in extraordinary peril by living off the land in the Alaskan Bush. McCandless represents the true tragic hero that Aristotle defined. Krakauer depicts McCandless as a tragic hero by detailing his unique and perhaps flawed views on society, his final demise in the Alaskan Bush, and his recognition of the truth, to reveal that pure happiness requires sharing it with others.
McCandless is a very independent person, a person with high hopes, that has a lot of courage, and is a very brave man for going out by himself in the wild of Alaska of the Stampede Trail. Chris McCandless had a lot of courage on going to Alaska by himself at a young age. While Chris was at any city or anybody’s house, he was ready to go to Alaska. But while he was there, close to the end of his life, he left a note on the back of the bus saying, “S.O.S I need your help. I am injured, near death, and too weak to hike out of here i am all alone, this is no joke. In the name of god, please remain to save me. I am out collecting berries close by and shall return by evening. Thank you, Chris McCandless. August?” Chris McCandless was by himself at the time. He shows his courage because while by himself, he went back out even though he was near death. He went out for food. Food for his health. That shows how much courage he had for his trip. Chris McCandless encouraged many young men to ...
Chris McCandless was a young man who did everything in his power to try and represent that freedom he was searching for. McCandless had everything before we went out but he decided to go out and travel by choice. He was considered a selfish man because when someone offered him to help him he rejects it in a nice way since we wants to do things himself. In the book Into the wild he states that,"You don't need to worry about me. I have a college education. I'm not destitute. I'm living like this by choice."
Living in the wilderness is difficult, but understanding the meaning of such lifestyle is even more difficult. One of the Christopher’s admirable qualities was that he was well aware of what he was doing. He knew about the difficulties and dangers that he would face into the wilderness, and was mentally prepared for that. Author Jon Krakauer says that “McCandless was green, and he overestimated his resilience, but he was sufficiently skilled to last for sixteen weeks on little more than his wits and ten pounds of rice. And he was fully aware when he entered the bush that he had given himself a perilously slim margin for error. He knew precisely what was at stake” (182). McCandless was an educated youth, who loved nature and dreamed of living in the Alaskan wilderness. Although he ignored to take many necessary things with him on this
Almost 24 years ago, Chris McCandless died in unfortunate circumstances. When the news was released that a young man in his early twenties was found dead in the wilderness many people speculated that it was just another hopeless hitchhiker. However this story took a three hundred sixty turn when author Jon Krakauer wrote a lengthy article on McCandless 's death. When the book was later published, the public response was incredible. Even though this happened about 24 years ago Chris McCandless 's death is still argued and discussed today. The events and circumstances leading up to Chris McCandless’s death are what seem to frustrate many readers. As stated in many articles, books, and blogs Chris McCandless died in April 1992 all by himself in
In 1992, Christopher McCandless set off on an odyssey into the backcountry of Alaska, an adventure that had proved fatal. After McCandless's corpse was found, Jon Krakauer wrote an article on the story of Chris McCandless, which was released in the January 1993 issue of Outside magazine. The article had received a negative response; several readers criticized McCandless for being foolish and ill-prepared, and showed no sympathy or remorse for his death. McCandless has been referred to as a nut, a kook, and a fool. However, McCandless was not a nonsensical man. In 1996, Jon Krakauer's novel, Into the Wild, was published. The novel uncovers more detail of McCandless's story. Into the Wild rebuts the idea of McCandless being someone who is foolish, and speaks of the many occasions where McCandless has demonstrated great perseverance and determination. The novel also proves the intelligence of McCandless, and brings insight into McCandless's psyche. The following examples will illustrate how McCandless was not a fool, but someone to admire.
According to what McCandless was trying to say, “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” (Krakauer 155). Similarly, Krakauer stated that, “When I decided to go to Alaska that April, like Chris McCandless, I was a raw youth who mistook passion for an insight and acted according to an obscure, gap-ridden logic” (155). He presumed that if he climbed the Devils Thumb, then it would fix everything that was wrong with his life. Krakauer said that, “In the end, of course, it changed almost nothing. But I came to appreciate that mountains make poor receptacles for dreams. And I lived to tell my tale” (155). However, McCandless did not come to that realization and unfortunately did not live to tell his
For Chris McCandless’s age, it is immature of him to attempt to survive off the Alaskan wilderness that he says would give him freedom live on his wits. Chris left Ron Franz, an old man who appreciates McCandless’s presences. As Ron tries to get close to Chris, Chris has Ron drop him off on the interstate outside of Grand Junction. “McCandless was thrilled to be on his way north and he was relieved as well-relieved that he had again evaded the impending threat of human intimacy, of friendship and all the messy emotional baggage that comes with it” (Krakauer 55). His immaturity comes with age as he shows how he can be self-centered and reject his emotions towards others. Whenever someone gets close to him, he bails and moves on a different path to get what he wants without making emotional commitment. Chris is young and still has much to learn. Twenty miles from the trail where he was dropped off, Chris stumbled upon a bus by the Soshana River. He called it a magic bus for he had been looking for shelter for a while. The bus is where he did his camping at. “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. Thou shalt not return, ‘cause “the west is the best” (Krakauer 163). This brings back how immature Chris is he has no...
...the latter years of his life through inherited ideals and views. Chris McCandless was a very bright individual, but he lived his life according to what his surroundings molded for him. He would have liked to be completely free of a materialistic world, free from a predetermined state, but his decision to find a new nirvana out in the wild uncannily referred back to the voyage of Everett Reuss and to the ideals set forth by his idolized authors. Chris McCandless was successful in alienating himself from the materialistic views of our contemporary world - burning his cash, donating his money to charity - but in the end, he made a plan for himself that had already been predetermined. Christopher J. McCandless was many things, and his journey was both extravagant and intriguing, but he is no pioneer. McCandless could not completely alienate himself from society.