Into The Wild Jon Krakauer Analysis

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Into the Wild
This summer I read Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. This story is Jon Krakauer’s attempt at unraveling the mystery of Christopher McCandless. Like Krakauer, I too was intrigued by who this young man was, and what propelled him to claim the name Alexander Supertramp, travel across North America, then later be found dead in a forgotten bus deep in the Alaskan wilderness. The book contains many of McCandless’s journal entries that he wrote during his travels; one entry stood out to me the most, “It is experiences, the memories, the great triumphant joy of living to the fullest extent in which real meaning is found. God it’s great to be alive! Thank you. Thank you!” I love the way you can practically hear him scream, “God it’s great …show more content…

I must give Jon Krakauer credit for doing the best he could with so little to work with and for his great writing skills, but there were many moments I found myself drifting from the story and not retaining anything I read. At one point I actually skipped about thirteen pages so I could get to where he finally gets back to the main story. For example, Krakauer wrote entire chapters to describe people that were unrelated to the story, which were interesting to read about, but were not worth entire chapters of the book. Moments like this made it difficult to stay connected to the story, as I felt I had to try to discover or uncover the reason for their inclusion in the book. I could see Krakauer’s desperation in wanting to write as much as possible, but he ruined a quality story by allowing the story to go …show more content…

This is part of the reason why the book is so famous and significant, even twenty years after it was first published. While reading I noticed myself feeling frustrated, but then also feeling triumphant for getting so far in the book. The book takes you on Christopher McCandless’s journey, and in some moments I could feel the cool and dry air of Alaska or the hot air of the mojave. Finishing the book felt similar to leaving a good trip. I was born in California and had the opportunity to go back a few years ago. I left there with a feeling of tranquility, knowing I could finally put truth to the images I created in my head from foggy memories of a toddler. That’s how I felt when I was done reading Into the Wild, like Christopher McCandless did what he needed to do and he could finally go home, only he couldn’t

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