Callarman's Arguments In Into The Wild

Chris McCandless was a very unique individual. In Jon Krakauer’s book, Into the Wild, he tries his best to make sense of McCandless’ journey to the Alaskan wilderness. However, he never really figured out what McCandless’ purpose of the trip was. Looking at McCandless’ life throughout the book, I believe that Chris McCandless went on his journey to find happiness within his own life and did achieve it in the end.

I think he just wanted to pursue life in a different way. Chris was not seeing life the way anyone else was so he decided to brush off into the wild and be free on his own. Though he did not survive he was still a very bright, arrogant human being. Shaun Callarman states, “He had no common sense, and he had no business going into Alaska with his Romantic silliness.” Chris knew going into the wild that he did not have much survival skills but that did not stop him from doing what he wanted to do because he did not care about society and was just completely over everything which was why he made the move to the wilderness. This clearly shows us that Chris did not have much common sense. If he had better survival skills and common sense he probably would have known not to eat that poisonous berry. It was his dream to be in the wild and he decided to pursue it. I respect his decisions and i personally believe it was a good decision other than the fact of him dying. He made the infinitive decision to do all of this so why stop

These anecdotes serve as contrasts to Chris’ adventures. Many of the other individuals are described as foolish, arrogant, or mentally imbalanced. Krakauer makes it very obvious that he does not believe that their negative traits applied to McCandless in any way. At the end of the chapter he goes as far as to explicitly state, “... unlike Waterman, McCandless wasn’t mentally ill. And unlike McCunn, he didn’t go into the bush assuming someone would automatically appear to save his bacon before he came to grief. McCandless didn’t conform particularly well to the bush-casualty stereotype. Although he was rash, untutored in the ways of the backcountry, and incautious to the point of foolhardiness, he wasn’t incompetent—he wouldn’t have lasted 113 days if he were. And he wasn’t a nutcase, he wasn’t a sociopath, he wasn’t an outcast. McCandless was something else—although precisely what is hard to say. A pilgrim, perhaps.” (85) This is one of the most blatant statements of the author’s true thoughts on Christopher McCandless and for good reason. Krakauer has just expounded the stories of some of Alaska’s worst wilderness casualties and he wants it to be flawlessly clear that the purpose of these anecdotes is to delve into a discussion about how Chris wasn’t just a casualty or a rebel or a fool

A couple of times I tried to tell him it was a mistake to get too deep into that kind of stuff, but Alex got stuck on many things. He always had to know the absolute right answer before he could go on to the next thing.” (Krakauer 18) Westerberg tells the reader that Chris is arrogant just by the latter phrase. The passage also tells the reader how much Chris disliked the world and the society he lived in.

Chris McCandless was just a victim of his own obsession. The novel "Into The Wild" written by John Krakauer revealed the life of a young bright man named Chris McCandless who turned up dead in Alaska in summer 1992. In the novel, John Krakauer approached carefully McCandless's life without putting too much authorial judgment to the readers. Although Chris McCandless remained an elusive figure throughout the novel, I can see Chris McCandless as a dreamy young idealist who tries to follow his dream but failed because of his innocent mistake which prove to be fatal and irreversible. Still, Chris McCandless's courage and passion was something that we should all be proud of.

While Chris McCandless does make mistakes, I would not agree with Shaun Callarman that he was “plain crazy”. The plans and mistakes made may seem idiotic, but are actually the mistakes that are found in the youth. I would say Chris was searching for his own self.

Callarman believes that Chris had no common sense and that he had no business going into the wild. I believe Chris did have common sense but he just made a few mistakes, mistakes that were obviously easy to make. He even had the common sense to try and go back but he couldn't because the stream was uncrossable. He figured he wasn't thinking everything through and knew he had to go back. Arrogance isn't

In the novel, Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer; people think that Chris McCandless is crazy, but I think he’s just searching for himself before he can live his own life. Callarman stated that “ He had no common sense, and he had no business going into Alaska with his Romantic silliness.” Long, C. (n.d.). I disagree with this because he’s not ignorant. He also mentioned that he doesn’t want to admire him for his courage nor his noble ideas, but people should be he took a risk to try and find his own person.

For him, spending a year or two in the Alaskan wilderness was his way of doing that. In my opinion, Chris had every right to go into the Alaskan wilderness and Shaun Callarman had no business questioning Chris’ right to do so. Shaun Callarman talks about romantic silliness. “...going into Alaska with his romantic silliness” (Krakauer, 1997) At what point was Chris trying to be romantic? He was just trying to find himself and escape the life that brought him so much pain. He wasn’t on some grand quest for some romantic journey.

In the book Into the Wild the main character, Chris Mccandless, made a rational decision to exclude himself from human society because he believed that going beyond what his parents and society wanted he would live a happier life. Chris wanted to leave society and venture into the wilderness to find the true meaning of who he was. Chris Mccandless was neither crazy or ignorant to live off in the wild where there was no people or anything to interact with but nature. Chris wanted to find his inner self and not only was he a role model for kids all across the country but he also followed his dream. Even though it was selfish of him to leave his family, Chris Mccandless is not crazy because he followed his dream, lived his life the way he wanted to, and went into the wild to find who he truly was.

The book about Chris McCandless’s journey into the Alaskan bush, Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer, received a lot of criticism about Chris being foolish for being unprepared. From the articles that I have read, most of the sources do believe that he was poorly prepared for his journey. But there are a few people who believe he was prepared mentally, and an even smaller amount believe he was fully prepared. I believe that Chris only knew what he was doing mentally. He did not have the correct tools or the developed skills to survive, for an extended period of time in the wild. But, he did know what he was about to get himself into. He planned out the trip and knew exactly what his risk factors were. Chris McCandless was either prepared

Into the Wild, a book by Jon Krakauer and a film by Sean Penn,features the journey of christopher McCandless,the son of wealthy parents who graduated from Emory University as a top student athlete.However, instead of embarking on a prestigious and profitable career, he chooses to give his savings to charity,rid himself of his possessions, and set out on a journey to the alaskan. He made a lot of mistakes based on arrogance.I do not admire him at all for his courage nor his noble ideas.He had no business going into the alaska with him romantic silliness.I feel that what he had did was ignorance and not right in my opinion.If he was so smart with a college diploma then he should have been smart enough to realize that he didn't have to go to that extremeness of going into alaska.

In the book Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer, Krakauer writes about Christopher McCandless, a young man who drops everything in his life to go travel throughout the states and end up in Alaska to find the truth to his questions. But did Chris find the truth he desperately desired? Some would say that McCandless did, other would say that he has wasted his time and was being ignorant and stupid. I agree with the author, Jon Krakauer, that Christopher McCandless was not a crazy lunatic, a sociopath, or an outcast because he had made lots of friends while traveling, but there were times when Chris was incompetent, even though he managed to stay alive for quite awhile. Christopher McCandless had a pretty normal childhood.

The author’s main purpose for writing Into The Wild was to explain exactly what happened to Chris on his trail and find a motive for why Chris decided to do this. Krakauer also wanted to provide reasoning for McCandless's actions, or at least provide more detail about McCandless's personal life. Also Krakauer wanted to motivate readers to do what makes them happy by providing justification for Chris’s actions. A quote that describes this is, “Make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt." ( Page 56 ) Krakauer also explains “many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation.” (Page 57) This doesn’t mean that you should go out into the wild like Chris, unprepared. The author just wants to identify that going to Alaska isn’t a horrible idea, a person just needs to be well equipped and go along with friends because he doesn’t want nobody to go through what Chris had to go through.

Christopher Johnson McCandless graduated from Emory University in 1990. The son of well-to-do parents, it appeared that Chris was prepared to embark on the next chapter of his life. He had been editor of the student newspaper, earned honors with a double major in history and anthropology, and seemed destined for law school. Determined to rewrite his story, Chris eschewed conventional expectations. He divested himself of money and possessions and immersed himself in a new identity: Alexander Supertramp, Alaskan Adventurer. Four months after beginning his trek into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley, Chris's decomposed body was found. When the details of his story emerged, many people thought Chris was mentally disturbed, calling him a "kook," a "nut," and "a half-cocked greenhorn," among other things (Krakauer, 1996, pp. 71-72). Had Chris's story had a happy ending, he would probably be described differently. He brought the tragic ending on himself, and people called him crazy. "Crazy" is a non-clinical word often used to describe someone with an underlying pathology. In this sense, there was nothing wrong with Chris McCandless. What he did suffer from was the enthusiasm and over-confidence of youth. Combined with poor planning and insufficient skills and experience in the outdoors, his "affliction" became fatal. McCandless made bad decisions, but he was not crazy.