Chris Mccaandless Analysis

Both Henry David Thoreau and Christopher McCandless ventured out into the woods to get away from the dreariness of everyday society and to find themselves. Only one lived to tell the tale. What was the fatal flaw of the man who didn’t continue on? The only way to find this is to analyze the differences and similarities between the two. McCandless, while embracing some of the same values as Thoreau, was ultimately a different man. While they led very contrasting lives in very distant times, both McCandless and Thoreau sought a type of freedom that can only be achieved when immersed in nature. Thoreau’s entitlement and cozy cabin in the woods is a far cry from McCandless’s constant struggle during his expedition, however, certain parallels

There are an infinite amount of unique responses to the question “What is the meaning of life?”. However, the majority of people will agree that the true meaning of life is to find happiness and what is really important to one’s self. In Jon Krakauer’s, Into The Wild, Chris McCandless conveys this idealism through his life’s journey as he bravely defies all limitations. Chris McCandless isolates himself from society in his Alaskan Odyssey as a way to defy accepted expectations and to begin discovering the meanings of life without any corrupted influences.

In Jon Krakauer's novel Into the Wild, the main character, Chris McCandless, seeks nature so that he can find a sense of belonging and the true meaning of who he is. However, it is the essence of nature that eventually takes his life away from him. At the end of his life, he is discovers his purpose and need of other people. After Chris McCandless death in Alaska, Krakauer wrote Into the Wild to reflect on the journey that McCandless makes. Krakauer protrays McCandless as a young man who is reckless, selfish, and arrogant, but at the same time, intelligent, determined, independent, and charismatic. Along with the irony that occurs in nature, these characteristics are the several factors that contribute to McCandless death.

In Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer explores the human fascination with the purpose of life and nature. Krakauer documents the life and death of Chris McCandless, a young man that embarked on an Odyssey in the Alaskan wilderness. Like many people, McCandless believed that he could give his life meaning by pursuing a relationship with nature. He also believed that rejecting human relationships, abandoning his materialistic ways, and purchasing a book about wildlife would strengthen his relationship with nature. However, after spending several months enduring the extreme conditions of the Alaskan wilderness, McCandless’ beliefs begin to work against him. He then accepts that he needs humans, cannot escape materialism, and can

“Wilderness appealed to those bored or disgusted with man and his works” (Roderick Nash). Chris McCandless, a modern transcendentalist, sent out on an adventure to find his true self in the wilderness of the North American continent. In the two years he was away, he met many individuals he called his friends and explored the extent of the American West. However, Chris was found dead in an abandoned bus on the Stampede Trail in the deep wilderness of Alaska in early September 1992. Chris believed he could live his life without the disruption of others. Henry David Thoreau believed that individuals can strive for themselves without government interruption. Chris McCandless, in Jon Krakauer’s documentary Into the Wild, believes that living off the land and life to its fullest without help from others compares to Henry David Thoreau’s beliefs in his writing “Civil Disobedience.”

Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, describes the adventure of Christopher McCandless, a young man that ventured into the wilderness of Alaska hoping to find himself and the meaning of life. He undergoes his dangerous journey because he was persuade by of writers like Henry D. Thoreau, who believe it is was best to get farther away from the mainstreams of life. McCandless’ wild adventure was supposed to lead him towards personal growth but instead resulted in his death caused by his unpreparedness towards the atrocity nature.

Much of the human race live their lives in accordance to what society sees as acceptable, but Christopher McCandless disregards societal norms in the novel Into the Wild. Within the novel, Jon Krakauer explores the story of Christopher McCandless’s journey to Alaska and investigates the events leading up to his death. Krakauer tells the story concerning McCandless’s life in a fashion that reveals a truth about nonconformity. Krakauer sends a message to common readers that nonconformity is not possible and the only way to survive the world we live in is to conform to our surroundings. Jon Krakauer express’s his ideals on nonconformity within Into the Wild through his non-chronological organizational structure, the use of logical reasoning,

Throughout history, people encounter a stage in their lives where they feel the necessity to assert their independence and challenge their abilities and self-worth. In the book, Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, the author shares his understanding and kinship with the main character, Chris McCandless, a young man who thrusts himself into a life of solitude and a harsh environment during his search for meaning to his life. Krakauer depicts himself and McCandless as modern day transcendentalists with an abundance of competency, resourcefulness and skills as naturalists. Although McCandless chose to experience a life of solitude and face the hazards that nature presents, his lack of preparedness prevented him from completing his endeavor successfully.

Transcendental ideas filled the veins of Christopher McCandless throughout Into the Wild. Over the course of his life, especially his journey through Alaska, he came across many complex issues. However, he always seemed to find solace in the text of great, progressive minds such as Thoreau and Emerson. Through the accounts of people who once knew McCandless or those found in his journal, the keys he led his short life by ultimately shaped his character, lifestyle, and who he strived to be.

For those who recognize these societal confines, they are often driven to reject society all together in hopes of achieving meaning in what seems like a meaningless life. This renunciation of American values is Chris McCandless so desperately attempted to do in Jon Krakauer's biography of the boy, Into the Wild. In an attempt to rid himself of the constricting culture, he embarks on a transformative journey to the Alaskan Tundra, “The trip was to be an odyssey in the fullest sense of the word, an epic journey that would change everything. [McCandless] had spent the previous four years, as he saw it, preparing to fulfill an absurd and onerous duty: to graduate from college. At long last he was unencumbered, emancipated from the stifling world of his parents and peers, a world of abstraction and security and material excess, a world in which he felt grievously cut off from the raw throb of existence” (Krakauer Chapter 3) Chris, captivated by the mysteries of life, sought refuge from the world of materialism and acquiescence by shedding his former self. For him, engrossing himself in nature was the only way to ponder this existential questions and a complete rejection of society was crucial to grasping this

In Walden, Henry David Thoreau remarks, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived” (61). Thoreau is a man who is known to simply live by restraining his necessities; in order to thrive on and live life to it’s utmost potential. Unsatisfied with his life, he comprehends that there is an extraordinary purpose to live on Earth. Merely abstracting himself from a urban society to seek out principles in which to live a refined life, he proceeds an odyssey inside of nature, in which he self-built and lived in a log cabin. In all respects, his two years of living nearby Walden Pond,

A young man, living in a comfortable civilized environment leaves society and all the benefits that he had behind him to build a new life. The novel Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer tells the story of a young man, Chris McCandless who had always believed his life ritual was based on mental knowledge. The existential mind of McCandless seemed to prove this statement true. His effort he put into his work was nothing compared to what would lie ahead on this so called “journey” of his. He loved the fact that each day he had the possibility of being exciting, different, or even dangerous. Chris was different in the way he wanted to experience life. He wanted to be alone and took no joy in the

Chris McCandless admired Henry David Thoreau, author of “Walden,” and adopted many of his ideals as his own. McCandless sought for simplicity and desired to stray from social norms and cliché material goods. Although Thoreau’s book was found in Chris’ trailer, he did not live step by step how Thoreau did. He ventured beyond these transcendentalist ideals, taking them to unheard of heights.

Henry David Thoreau’s Life In The Woods is a self-experiment that supplies a perfect opportunity for Thoreau to discrete from society and to live “several more lives.” This short story is a narrative of Thoreau’s journey as he finds his true self while attempting to live a life of purpose and intentions in the woods. As Thoreau describes it, his scrutiny of his two years and two months of living in an isolated cabin was simply to try new experiences. Thoreau says, “I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one. It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves.” Furthermore, Thoreau began to follow a common procedure and he saw this as nonessential, now that he is conscious of this routine, he began to acknowledge the fact that it was time to commence a new life.

    In his creative nonfiction piece, Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer explores the themes of living with purpose and living without it and how falling into society’s trap of “existing”, whether aware of it or not, can be the hinderance of a life with meaning. This implied binary is not only explored throughout Chris’s narrative where he ventures into the Alaskan wilderness, but through Krakauer’s own experiences while climbing up Devil’s Thumb and being lonely, exhausted, and at the brink of death. Krakauer consistently juxtaposes conventional living with living in the wild, and while Krakauer initially appears to be presenting a personal struggle and failure in his Devil’s Thumb journey, he is really bringing to light a deeper sense of meaning and release that can be found when breaking away from monotony.