The Unavoidable American Dream

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Everyone dreams of reaching their maximum potential and along the way finding themselves as well. Everyone wants to go after the things in life that make them happy. This is known as the American dream; Striving for huge goals in your life and never giving up on what you believe. This is exactly what Christopher McCandless was trying to accomplish in the novel, Into the Wild. Even though Chris’s American dream wasn’t even closely related to the average American dream, he still made time for his own dreams. Chris had been dreaming of his Alaskan Odyssey long before leaving his home behind. Along his journey Chris manages to reject the average American dream and society, and adapts to a whole new lifestyle. Chris also tries persuading people who he meets along the way to live this type of nomadic lifestyle as well. His whole reason for leaving his old life behind is to find himself. Another reason that Chris leaves is because he values freedom, and wanted an easier, simpler life. My goal in this paper is to talk about the unavoidable American dream which includes many ways that Chris rejected society, lived his own American dream, found freedom, persuaded others, and found himself along the way.

In the novel Into the Wild, Christopher McCandless did many things to reject society and the average American dream. As Chris was growing up, he lived a very privileged lifestyle. He was raised up in a wealthy family, was a very intelligent young man, attended college at Emory (a top university), had good looks, and was very athletic. He had the perfect life some may say. But this perfect lifestyle wasn’t enough for Chris. Chris found it offensive to be wealthy because of the many starving people out there. The materialism in which Chris ...

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...with an answer to change their minds. Chris was always trying to persuade these people to follow this dream; to get away from it all; to find freedom and themselves as well. Chris even wrote a letter to Ron Franz trying to persuade him to live the nomadic lifestyle. The letter reads:

I'd like to repeat the advice I gave you before, in that I really think you should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you previously may never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future.

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