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Recommended: an article on selfishness

The Selfish Christopher McCandless
“If you want something in life, reach out and grab it.” (Christopher McCandless) This is exactly what Chris McCandless did. Raised in a well off family in Annandale, Virginia, McCandless was a bright young man ready to enter the working world with an acceptance to law school. However upon graduation from college, McCandless embarked on a journey to escape the confinements of society and to become “lost in the wild.” This journey led him to the west coast and eventually to the Alaskan frontier. Hunting an enormous Alaskan Moose, making new friendships on the road, and hitchhiking his way to Alaska are snippets of his adventure into the wild. McCandless journey and will to part from society were admirable, but by completely dropping off the grid without any warning or note was devastating to his family and those close to him. His parents searched and searched for him, they hired a private detective and feared the worst for over two years. McCandless’s journey proved to be fatal and his body was found by hunters in Alaska. His parents eventually found out about this after two long years of searching for him. This was extremely selfish of McCandless, although he did “reach out and grab” what he wanted in life, he handled it in the worst possible way, by not telling anyone which left his family in grief. In Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, Krakauer’s negative tone towards McCandless reveals his selfish nature, while Penn’s incorporation of McCandless’s friendship in the film reveals a McCandless that’s neutral due to his combination of selfishness and selflessness. Though both men have justified reasons for their beliefs, my own experience with selfish friends makes Krakauer’s stance more appealing to ...

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...ess killing of a wild moose also displayed his selfishness in that he had no knowledge on preserving meat and this ended in the waste of the animal. However McCandless was also portrayed as a selfless person in that he spent the time and energy to smooth over a rough patch in Jan and Wayne’s relationship. That he went out of his way to help others instead of looking out for himself as he usually did. In my opinion I believe Christopher McCandless was a selfish man. His actions remind me of a good friend I had who stopped hanging out with me because he was older and didn’t want to be seen with a 6th grader. That was a selfish reason to stop being friends with someone and that is why Jon Krakauer’s stance resonates with me more than Sean Penn’s does. In the end McCandless did “reach out and grab,” what he wanted in life, however the way he did it was in a selfish way.

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