ALLUSIONS ON INTO THE WILD

Chris McCandless finds many conflicts within his life such as his conflict with his father Walt. Walt McCandless was very educated he was one of the most important NASA engineers of the time. He lived his life in normality by finding a job and wife and simply living a simple. For Chris he was a lot different than from his

Mccandless had the courage to live what was planted in his fantasies because he had no fear of judgement. Mccandless rejects materialism. “Chris had recently upbraided Walt and Billie for expressing their desire to buy him a new car for his graduation gift.” (pg.20)

McCandless’s family loves him, but given “Chris’s extravagantly independent nature, polarization was inevitable” (Krakauer 61). In his letter to his sister, McCandless writes “for a few months after graduation I’m going to let them think….that our relationship is stabilizing...And then… I’m going to divorce them as my parents once and for all” (Krakauer 61). The fact that he feels the need to hurt them so maliciously shows that his relationship with his parents is unhealthy. McCandless’s relationship with his parent’s fluctuates throughout his life, but the time period that he exuded kindness towards his parents affects them positively. But after McCandless leaves them without a goodbye, Walt and Billie, his mother, become different. It surprisingly, hits his father, Walt, the most. Walt had always been in charge, “taking control is something he does unconsciously” (Krakauer 105). But after McCandless disappears, Walt’s personality transforms. He becomes “softer, more tolerant”, obviously missing “his company even

In a world filled with a population of millions of individuals, there are very few who embark on adventures to see the world from a different point of view. Chris McCandless is one of these rare individuals who embarked on a journey where he could embrace nature and himself as a person. Chris McCandless has a different perspective on life than other people have. Throughout Into The Wild, McCandless is seen as a person who goes and seeks risky experiences and challenges himself to do more daring things. McCandless leaves his family to go on a journey to Alaska and into the wilderness where he ends up dying.

In the wilderness of Alaska, temperatures can drop down to thirty degrees below zero. Christopher McCandless lived in these conditions for four months after traveling through North America for almost two years. It can be seen in the novel, Into the Wild, that during his journey he had many brushes with death and burned bridges with people who deeply cared for him. For those reasons and many more, people assert Chris McCandless was unprepared, careless, and selfish on his personal journey across the United States, culminating in his death in Alaska.

thought he was capable of living in the woods with the supplies he had and no help what so ever. “No longer to be poisoned by civilization he flees; and walks alone upon the land to become lost into the wild” (163). This shows that McCandless doesn't like civilization and he wants to be lost in the wild. That is one of his motivations to leave. He wants to live his best life which apparently for him is alone.

Jack London was the primary reason he left to go to the “Northland Wild.” Alaska became a place that called him after reading things from Jack London. London describes “the Wild” with such grace and intensity that it must have just hit home for McCandless. He was obviously inspired by something Jack London said or he probably wouldn't have decided to give up everything he had to live like a homeless man.

This perspective goes against him being defined as a tragic hero—it conflicts with Miller’s criteria in which the “protagonist’s primary struggle needs to be the search for their sense of dignity and identity [and] find their rightful place in society”(Miller). However, Krakauer refutes this belief through stating that his childhood lifestyle was controlled through the harshness of Christopher’s father. He says, “given Walt’s authority through high school and college to a surprising degree, but the boy raged inwardly all the while. He brooded at length over what he perceived to be his father’s moral shortcomings, the hypocrisy of his parents’ lifestyle, the tyranny of their conditional love”(Krakauer 64). McCandless’ years up to high school had been a blinded lifestyle in which he had to follow the routine of his authoritative father. It is not until university where he is able to truly seek out the freedom of being able to choose what he wants to pursue in his life. By the time he graduates, he already makes the choice to take a journey into the wild, meaning that he had no past experience of getting a job, making money, or having a set routine life as other college graduates. Krakauer uses this situation to strengthen his illustration of McCandless as a tragic hero, as it shows that he truly does not have a rightful

One reason I believe Chris’s adventure was ludicrous is because he left originally in part to get away from his family due to ongoing conflicts. Conflicts between family members is a natural process within a family and certainly is resolvable with attention and problem-solving the issue. In McCandless’s situation specifically, he developed anger most directly related to his father’s adultery from his past. As Krakauer writes, “Long after falling in love with Billie, long after she gave birth to Chris, Walt continued his

McCandless views the world differently comparing it to nature around him. He views the world different from other people’s perspective and he does not want anything to do with the current generation. How everyone around mostly revolved around money and thinking they need the newest thing to fit in into society or the new generation An example from chapter 3 it says “chris had only recently upbraided walt and billie for expressing their desire to buy him a new car as a graduation present”. Also McCandless responded saying,”i can’t believe they’d try and buy me a car, later he complained to my sister” showing how humble he is by saying he already has car, why would he want or need a

In the book Into the Wild, We learn about Chris McCandless who wanted to set off on a journey Into the Wild. Chris was a smart young man and decided to set out for his own life seeking adventure after he graduated college. On the road Chris would write about his experiences and the things he thought about while being alone or in nature. To connect the reader with the text more and to understand the theme, Krakauer added epigraphs from other pieces of writing to the beginning of every chapter. In the book the epigraphs before every chapter relate to that certain chapter and helps add more tone to the story. Also the epigraphs can help set the mood of the chapter and both the content and style of the novel.

McCandless was trapped in a society that created an illusion of his own fake happiness while he was looking to discover himself. He possessed a desperate need to find the true meaning that only he could answer. McCandless quotes “I'm going to paraphrase Thoreau here... rather than love, than money, than faith, than fame, than fairness... give me

The novel Into the Wild is a nonfiction novel published by Jon Krakauer who investigated the life and death of a free spirited individual named Christopher McCandless. McCandless was a recent Emory University graduate who sought to suck the marrow out of life through an independent experience in nature and purposely sought to this experience in the rawest form of supplies. He was found dead in August of 1992 in an abandoned bus in the Alaskan wilderness. For the sake of his journey, he purposely didn't bring an adequate amount of food or supplies.   Consequently, those who read of his actions wonder what evoked him to live the way he

Into the Wild is a modern day exploration of liberty found by eschewing custom and flinging oneself into the literal wilderness. Exploring Christopher McCandless' true story, the film couches McCandless' search for freedom in noble terms, quoting Lord Byron, for example. In addition, both John Stuart Mill and Anne Norton would appear to agree with McCandless' adventure, though there is also the cautionary possibility that McCandless was troubled and selfish rather than noble. John Stuart Mill and Anne Norton both argue for throwing off custom in order to find greater personal freedom. In that respect, McCandless certainly was a man after their own hearts. Unfortunately, it could also be forcefully argued that McCandless was utterly ignorant and lacked respect for the wilderness, for others who knew how to live in the wilderness, and for the family that he put through hell. Even 10-year-old girl scouts know that you should always be prepared but McCandless, a grown, intelligent man, did not bother to prepare himself. Consequently, McCandless could be viewed as a noble adventurer or as a fool.

Walt McCandless remembers that when hiking Longs Peak in Colorado “Chris wanted to keep going to the top... If he’d been fourteen or fifteen, he would have simply gone on without me (Krakauer, 109).” McCandless knew what he wanted to achieve, regardless of whether it meant disobeying orders. If Chris wanted something, he would work to get it. This rationale only grew until he was almost unstoppable in his teenage years, which is why “It’s somewhat surprising that Chris ceded to pressure from Walt and Billie about attending college when he refused to listen to them about so many other things (Krakauer, 114).” Through his teenage years, Chris consistently disobeyed his parents orders and suggestions because he despised his father’s past. Even while on the road, many of those who met Chris picked up on his strong distaste for his father, as Wayne Westerberg noted, “From the things he said, you could tell something wasn’t right between him and his family (Krakauer, 18).” Chris hated the man who told him lies throughout his life and about his past, and it seems that Chris associated anything that Walt did, with evil. Any moral decisions Walt made had to be inherently malicious, so McCandless contradicted most of Walt’s decrees. Scientists had discovered that character flaws like stubbornness can be developed due to “misconceptions about the nature of self , life or others