Chris Mccandless Journey Into The Wild

The young, Chris McCandless brought to life in Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild is admired immensely for his courage and noble ideas carried out his dream of living in Alaska for as long as he could. Some would say that he was a reckless idiot, a wacko, or a narcissist who perished out of arrogance and stupidity, others would say that he was an admirable hero. The truth lies in his motives which were to face the raw challenges of life on his own. Chris McCandless was a brave soul who chose to challenge life in real terms in order to test his personal boundaries against nature.

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

The novel “Into the Wild”, by Jon Krakauer, is an excruciating story about a young man facing off against the dangers of nature. The main protagonist, Chris McCandless faced off against many internal and external obstacles that stood in his way of achieving his goal of successfully surviving on his own in the wilderness of North America. McCandless clashed with many lethal and perilous obstacles as he travelled all the way across the continent. The challenges he faced varied from surviving in the harsh wilderness, the difficulties of young manhood, and also the challenge of person versus society.

When Christopher McCandless abandoned society to “walk into the wild”, he thought he was going to achieve true serenity, and for a short amount of time he did. Yet in the end, his journey into the wild killed him, and he realized too late that he needed other people in order to survive. In McCandless’ final moments, he writes, “happiness only real when shared” (Krakauer 189). When McCandless finally comes to the realization that to be truly happy, you need other people, it is too late. McCandless was more alone in the wild than in society, and his isolation ultimately leads to his untimely

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

The gripping tale of a young man who leaves all that he has and goes to live amidst the natural world, Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer showcases the two years Christopher McCandless had spent journeying throughout the United States before his unfortunate death. After graduating from Emory University in 1990, McCandless disconnected with all of his past relations and abandoned the majority of his possessions. McCandless’ decisions either seem extremely unwise or extremely courageous. He had a comfortable life with few worries yet he still chose to toss it all away and venture into unknown territories. What many wonder is why he would do such an irrational thing. Maybe, McCandless’ was simply trying to run away from his perception of reality.

The transcendentalist philosopher Henry David Thoreau once wrote, “Most men even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the facetious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them.” Thoreau advocated simplifying life and the benefits of living in isolation from society in the wilderness to “suck the marrow out of life”. In the non-fiction book titled Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, the young man Chris McCandless’ story is told. McCandless traveled to Alaska to experience the most extreme transcendentalist existence foretold by Thoreau. While in Alaska he meet his end, and many historians contemplate why he took this tremendous undertaking to

In his work “Into The Wild”, Jon Krakauer writes about a young man who escaped on an expedition to invent a new life for himself. However, the reasons why he decides to partake on such journey raises many questions because Christopher McCandless lives a life of valuable possessions which his rejection of his economic class to disperse in a cultural background of nature steers Krakauer decision to report his story. Krakauer believes that a young man with a great amount of opportunities must have a logical reasons to abandon all the achievements and most importantly his family to live in the Wilderness. Although, Krakauer intends to portray McCandless as a genius of his choices and ethical to his ideas, as the book unfolds Krakauer

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.

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.

Chris’s passion for the wild began in his childhood. His father, Walt, would take him hiking every year since the age of eight. Theses backpacking trips ignited a longing for adventure that was unquenchable. In chapter five of Into The Wild, the author, Jon Krakauer writes, “McCandless was stirred by the austerity of this landscape, by its saline beauty. The desert sharpened the sweet ache of his longing, amplified it, gave shape to it in sere geology and clean slant of light.” Krakauer refers to Chris’s passion for nature to guide the reader toward a better understanding of his character. For someone who is not entranced by wilderness like McCandless was, it helps to understand how he became infatuated with it. Chris respected nature to such an extreme that when he was dying in the

Award winning journalist and author, Jon Krakauer, in his book, Into the Wild, analyzes the life of Chris McCandless as well as the events that ensued his death. Krakauer’s purpose is to inform the reader about how and why Chris McCandless decided to embark on a journey into the wilderness of Alaska. He adopts an empathetic tone in order to impart to his readers that Chris McCandless was a very misunderstood young adult.

In the novel, Into the Wild by John Krakauer, the character Christopher McCandless is expressed through a collection of trials and tribulations in an effort to seek ultimate freedom from society and what it deems as necessity. Christopher McCandless grew up in a well to do family and a college education promising of a successful career. However, after completing college, McCandless focuses on a venture towards happiness. Leaving behind his family, friends, and belongings McCandless treks across the United States with all his necessities on his back in an effort to live off the land and fulfill a minimalistic lifestyle. Ultimately aiming for the great Alaskan turf, Chris initially enjoys what the land has to offer, but soon discovers that he

This book is part of the longstanding American tradition of men to write about their experiences in nature. It is important to note how important nature is in the scope of American literature. The ability for a person the retreat into nature is what makes differentiated American life and the books based on it from the European country that it gained independence from. This nature writing was revitalized by Transcendentalists such as Emerson and Thoreau who normalized the narrative of the everyman being able to go into nature and learn about himself and the environment that he is a part of.

Chris McCandless was an idealistic young man from Virginia who donated all of his college money savings to charity to then go on an adventure. He held many similar beliefs to the famous philosopher and writer Ralph Waldo Emerson, an essayist who advocated Nature over a century and a half before, particularly in the first chapter, originally published in 1836, and in some of his other literary works. Both people expressed a need for isolation and living independently, becoming one with nature and severing the need of materialistic things and the ability to truly appreciate nature. When Chris McCandless lived in the wild in Alaska, he successfully lived on his own and explored unmarked areas, he became in harmony with nature and learned to truly appreciate it, and defied society's expectations for him, overall living up to Emerson’s transcendentalist and individualist philosophy.