"Author's Note." Into the Wild. New York: Anchor, 1997. N. Print. Krakauer, Jon.
He favored relationships as he longed to find himself, to be as free as the birds in the sky. He wanted a secluded life, one purely by his rigorous morals and rules. He didn’t want anyone to know where he was, what was on his mind or what his next move might be. Christopher McCandless found true happiness and himself in the wild. He was nothing but a human being, a little impulsive yes, but with a different way of looking at life.
Despite Troy?s continuous attempts to push himself away from anything he had ever known about his father, the inheritance of such irrational behavior was inevitable because it was all he had ever known. The inheritance of this angry behavior was, in turn, the cause of his damaging relationships with his own family. Just as Troy endured his father?s cruel ways, Troy?s family is left with no choice but to try to learn to live with his similar ways. Troy?s family is one that strives to maintai... ... middle of paper ... ...y as a responsible person. He overlooks Cory?s efforts to please him and make a career for his son, learned from his past with his own father, is responsible for the tension that builds between him and Cory.
“What is the purpose of life?” This simple question intimidates many who refuse to confront the reality of life. Living in a fast paced world consumed by technology and materialism, it is difficult for one to examine what is truly important to live life wholly. Because of this struggle, many settle with unhappy lives, wallowing in fear, regret and dissatisfaction. In John Krakauer’s novel Into the Wild, he examines the short life of Christopher McCandless, a courageous man who detached himself from his past life in order to pursue something elusive in the Alaskan bush. Although Chris McCandless withdrew from the company of his family and friends, he journeyed into the wild philosophically free; gaining total independence and personal triumph,
He wanted to get away from all the materialistic world and find himself. Chris never felt that he fit in at Emory. He was not one to brag about his family’s wealth nor did he care for it, “Chris started complaining about all the rich kids at Emory”(page 123). Even before his big Alaska trip, McCandless had taken small trips here and there, he did not know what was going to happen, but he was an advertorials guy and he just wanted to have fun while he can. He wanted to make up for the time that was lost during his teenage years because he blames his dad infidelity for making his childhood so terrible, “He later declares to Carine and others that the deception committed by Walt and Billie made his ‘entire childhood seem like a fiction’”(page 123).
He left and “walked into the wild”, as he said, to escape his problems (Krakauer, 69). He never confronted his dad about his feelings. Carine McCandless talks about this personality trait in Chris saying, “Chris was the sort of person who brooded on things. If something bothered him; he wouldn’t come right out and say it” (Krakauer, 122). He changed his name, He wasn’t trying to take pride in his “adventure”.
It originally was because he wanted to cut ties with his family. He wasn’t very fond of his dad, because he cheated on his mom with his ex-wife even after he was born. Once Chris learned this about his dad, he never thought of him the same again. He also wanted to show that he could survive by himself without the help of others. To show that, he decided to go into the woods with almost nothing and no one, and try to survive.
The truth of life and existence is only achievable through personal satisfaction of goals and breaking away from the expectations of society. Chris was not one to stand by and let society define his path instead he took control of his own destiny and found his own “truth”. In all, Chris McCandless should be considered a transcendentalist. He chose to live a life of simplicity, with a spartan apartment and living in woods, lived a simply life in an off campus apartment until he left to live of the land in the Alaskan wilderness and rely on himself and his skills and talents to make it. Although, he was unfortunate and did not live to tell his story, his beliefs and ideas will be remembered as those of a transcendentalist.
In former times he had given up, because it was out of his reach to compete with his older brother, who had been the quintessential model student and a big guy on the campus. The Wave offered a new way of life to him. The opinions and reactions of the other students were different too. They changed from being fascinated to being afraid of the newly founded movement. The wave made Robert equal like everyone else, so like David Robert was not resilient because he could not see that he was being dragged into a cult.