1. In your notes, list the people McCandless met along the way & record a few facts about each one. Crazy Ernie: He offers McCandless a job at a rundown ranch in northern California. Later, McCandless leaves the job because he realize Crazy Ernie was never going to pay him. Jan Burres and Bob: Meets McCandless when he is searching for edible alongside U.S Highway 101. Jan thought about her son who she had been separated from her son. She begins to have a special interest In him. McCandless helps the couple sell books at a flea market. Westerberg : McCandless owns his own grain elevator he offers him a ride, a place to stay, and then a job. Thomas and Karin: German couple who had given him a ride. Tracy: A girl who fell in love with McCandless. Ronald Franz: a retired army Veteran who once had a drinking problem. He tells McCandless he wishes to adopt him. He had lost his wife and his son in a car accident a few years ago. 2. What was it McCandless personality that made an impression on people? McCandless made a huge impression on people because he was very different from others. He was a very hardworking man, as it states when he started a job he would finish it no matter the difficulties he encountered. McCandless was a passionate in what he did. He avoided society not …show more content…
I believe that any father that has love for his son needs to consider his sons opinion whether if he agrees with him or not. Alex’s father Christopher, was controlling and he didn’t give Alex the opportunity to be his own person and explore himself as a person. I feel that although he didn’t have a good relationship with his father, and he had anger towards him it still does not justify his bizarre idea of running away and creating a new life for himself. Also he had his whole family worried about him running away was not going to fix his relationship with his
McCandless was different to other people, Westerburg saw this, explaining how McCandless ”tried too hard to make sense of the world. To figure out why people were bad to each other so often”(18). When McCandless originally left, he had felt betrayed by his parents and in college he slowly started pushing his friends away. He was disgusted by all the lies and began to shut down and came the plan to leave in his Datsun. Anybody else in his place would have decided to take charge and take a decisive turn turn in their life, hoping it would be for the better. Many don 't realize that although the beginning he was escaping, he later preferred living in nature and didn 't want to stop. He said it himself in a letter “ The freedom and simple beauty of it is just too good to pass up”(33). Also, in McCandless story you’re able to see the evolution of McCandless mentality. At first, he is alone trying to cope with the setbacks he encounters, in which he almost dies from. Then, needing to recharge, he makes friends like Franz and the Westerburg that allow him to see the positives of having someone there for you. However, he still was not convinced that human relationships were necessary, he keeps a safe distance sending them postcards when he can. It is not until at Alaska that McCandless discovers what happiness consists of, he writes in bold letters, “Happiness only
“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
...ad a strong character trait; he was stubborn, smart, and brave. He was a strong individual that had a complicated family issue. An issue that he was unsure if the issue could be resolved if he was back with his family, instead he left and decided it would be better to confront the issue through another approach. The approach he took to resolve the issue was time; sometimes there are problems that a person will encounter that takes time and perception, not to just jump into a situation when unsure of the true nature of the situation. We all dwell differently, some people like to talk about their problems but some people don’t. Others just like to keep their personal feeling or emotions private or maybe try to figure their emotions out on their own time at their own pace, and I believe that Cristopher McCandless was one private individual with those character traits.
Christopher Johnson McCandless was not justified for shunning society and social norms in favor of individualism. McCandless misinterpreted “Walden”, was crazy to shun society, misunderstood “Self Reliance”, and committed actions that contradicted themselves. McCandless was misguided, insane, and had no idea what he was trying to accomplish because he got two simple things like solitude and isolation mixed up.
Was he a reckless idiot? That is the big question. This is what people always seem to talk about when they talk about Chris McCandless. There are many people who think that Chris McCandless was a reckless idiot who was mentally ill, or something else was wrong with Chris. It seems that almost everybody that met Chris thought maybe Chris was crazy or had problems. Here are just a few things that people said about Chris and his state of mind. Pg 40 Zarza admits saying, "he was always going on about trees and nature and weird stuff like that. We all thought he was missing a few screws. Pg 42 Charlie said, "seemed like a kid who was looking for something." Pg 45 Burres said "I thought Alex had lost his mind when he told us about his 'great Alaskan odyssey, ' as he called it."
To begin with, McCandless’s decision to walk into the wild was acceptable because he wanted to become an inspiration and an individual. Emerson states, “There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance: that imitation is suicide” (Emerson). Chris McCandless left to shun the conformist society that he could feel changing him. Chris wanted the chains that bound him to be broken. Society takes the individual and locks it up and destroys it. According to Emerson, “It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion: it is easy to in solitude to live after our own: but the great man is he who in the midst of the crow keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude” (Emerson). McCandless left his materialistic family to be his own person ad to be unique. The world’s opinion does not make the man wh...
...fe for oneself. McCandless primary tragic flaw being his unwillingness to form long-term relations brought him both to the happiest moment of his life, but also to his demise. McCandless never had a problem with people, but rather with the status quo of society, the idea that a man or a woman has to live inside of a coordinate plane. McCandless left home and went on his adventure simply for his own well being, he achieved both what he wanted to accomplish while learning a valuable lesson along the way. He learned that happiness must be shared, and while everyone has his or her flaws, it is important to let these go. Christopher McCandless should teach people the importance of following your dreams, and the importance of enjoying the natural serenity of life.
Meg Murray, the protagonist and the person from whom the reader gets their point of view, is the main character. She has a little brother, Charles Wallace, and two twin brothers, Sandy and Denny. Her mother is a guiding figure within the story, and serves as her daughter Meg's source of ambition. We learn from reading the story that Meg's father disappears from an extremely secret scientific project, and is expected to return, but hasn't for several years. Meg can see the pain that her mother feels and the rest of the family also about the loss of their father, and wants to help find him. All the while, feelings are mutual that their father is living, but nobody knows for sure.
However, Christopher McCandless should be viewed as admirable because he had the capability of viewing dreams and striving hard to fulfill that dream- something that very few people are able to do.
Janie’s grandmother believes that Janie needs a husband not lover. She wants Janie to marry a rich man. Nanny chooses Logan Killicks, an older man than Janie, because she believes he will provide for Janie all the material things she needs. Janie was neve...
McCandless was not the 'sit down and take it in stride' kind of person. If he saw something wrong, something he did not agree with, he would try to fix it, or help in any way that he could. He was inherently compassionate, a man of his principles; owned by the rules that he governed himself with. It is apparent that he had always been an idealistic dreamer, and had always believed himself capable of much, because as his friend shared: “He'd say 'Come on,...
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
He wasn’t too fond of truly becoming close to others. Krakauer states, “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” (55). This had also occurred a few months prior in Niland Slabs, where he met Burres and Tracy. He had made friends there, and Tracy had developed feelings for him, but he rebuffed any of her advancements; he didn’t want to get involved with others, not after having left home for his journey. To him, having had friends and family that he left behind, he loved people, but he didn’t want to be close to them in any way other than purely being around them. Growing up with a difficult family relationship, such as McCandles’s, which caused him to push people away; it’s easy to relate to him in that aspect. For a majority of my life, up until I was around 13, I did almost exactly as he, when it came to being around others; I enjoyed their company, but I pushed everyone away and only felt relief from doing so. I was more than happy with how it was back then, but now I’m not much different; I’ve learned to accept a few people into my
To him, all those people, like Franz, Westerberg, and even Jim Gallien, all seemed like his family. Some of them gave him a place to crash for the night, gave him a job, and even assisted him on his journey, like giving him a ride. McCandless being nice and appreciative to all those people who have helped him throughout his journey shows how “saintly” he can be. Works Cited Into the Wild. Dir.
McCandless was a fearless human being. I think that most of the people’s ideologies and personalities have to do with how they were raised by the parents and everything that was taught to them. When a lack of love exists from a parent towards his child, a hate can be created without knowing it. McCandless could have gone away from society to escape reality or, for being in a place where he could find himself at peace. Either one, we can assume that he obviously had different ideas about civilization; the idea of having a life full of danger and adventure inspired and excited him.