Into The Wild Rhetorical Analysis

Chris McCandless had a long journey to Alaska. He was very serious about going into the wild. His wild place was Alaska. Chris had his reasons for doing what he did. If he knew what lay ahead of him, he would have prepared himself better. There were a few mistakes that he made, he wasn’t prepared, isolating himself from people that would willfully help him, and his lack of knowledge.

Krakauer starts the book off by telling who was last with McCandless before he set off onto the trail, he would never return to. Krakauer gives the readers background information for most of the book, along with excerpts from McCandless’s journal he seldom kept. This helps his argument because it gives us an inside look at McCandless’s life and the reasons for some of the things he would've done. Starting in chapter 11, titled “Chesapeake Bay,” Krakauer gives an insight to Christopher McCandless’s family around 2 months after his body was found. By organizing his book starting with whom McCandless met and his travel across the country, Krakauer makes his argument about McCandless and how he did not go into the wild unprepared, very clear and persuasive to the

It may seem at first, as it is easy to judge others, that Chris McCandless is a crazy person. How many people do you know that go to Alaska with minimal materials and food that will certainly not last for long (4). However, for those that understand Chris’ reason for wanting this escape, like myself, can argue that Chris is indeed not crazy. On page 18, Jon Krakauer explains that “He was extremely ethical and set high standards for himself.” Furthermore, Chris choose to set high standards for himself by assuring himself that he would wait to adventure until he graduated college (22). In addition, Krakauer explains that Chris was affected by a skewed relationship with his father (155). This idea is what may have led Chris to distance himself from his family and adventure Alaska. It is difficult to think that Chris is not crazy, until you come to the realization that Chris needed an escape and was only “looking for more adventure and freedom” (174). Certainly, Chris may have seemed crazy in certain situations, but had a mindset that prevents him from being considered a crazy person.

In the excerpt above, Krakauer cites Roman Dial, a professor at Alaska Pacific University and renowned backcountry adventurer, to further support that people should not judge and assume that McCandless was incapable. In fact, McCandless’s ability to live in the wild for months was actually an impressive achievement. Krakauer and Dial recognize that McCandless did make fatal mistakes, but critics fail to give McCandless enough credit for what he was able to accomplish.

McCandless gave up all he had, traveled the country, and in doing so he found how to live life his way. The genius of McCandless is not subtle with most believing he was an idiot for his actions but with his experiences and his courage it appears that McCandless was a genius. There are several instances in where individuals who knew him referred to him as smart and some praised his way of living. Throughout his journey McCandless showed he was more than capable of surviving in the wilderness, changed lives, and showed a level of determination that is admirable.

In the novel “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer, Chris McCandless was a 24-year-old man who was caught in his own obsession. “Into the Wild” shows an idealist young man who goes off to Alaska, who then turns up dead after a few months. McCandless was a bright person, who had everything but then decided that he was playing it too safe. He decided that he was going to take a trip up north to Alaska, trying to live in the wild. After an article of McCandless’s death came out, people judged him, for his foolest rash decision. Krakauer, however, loved McCandless’s idea of trying to live in the wild and that’s why he wrote a book about it. In the novel, McCandless can be identified as a seeker and finder. People suspect Chris McCandless to be a seeker

His entire journey throughout North America and inevitably up to Alaska was because of his views of individualism. He believed that in order to be happy, you had to know yourself and be your own person. He rejected the ideas that conformed to society and hated authority. Society will complicate and confuse our existence, making us forget who we really are by causing us to become obsessed with that which we are not and McCandless understood that. He wanted to live completely alone, in a world where the only laws he felt the need to follow were those of nature. The final passage of Into the Wild brings together all the book’s themes and questions into a single, compact description of a found object that could be taken as a metaphor for both Christopher McCandless’ destiny and for Jon Krakauer’s careful collation of the evidence of his

A great portion of the book is made up of quotes and conversations that McCandless had with others. The aforementioned writing style of conversation allows for a trustworthy narrative because there is less opportunity to expose inaccurate details. Furthermore, Krakauer discussed McCandless’s life with many people who all had very different relationships with him and who knew him at different times in his life. McCandless’s family provided background for his childhood, and a friend, Jan Burres, tells of McCandless at an older age, nearer to the time when he was in Alaska. Utilizing multiple sources permits Krakauer to form his own narration by sorting through the biases of the others. Krakauer clearly spent an immense time analyzing the many writings of McCandless, enabling him to speak with such an authentic voice about his

Although Callarman puts up a very good argument, I disagree with him. McCandless is a very dynamic protagonist, always kept the audience on their toes and guessing what would happen next. He was adventurous, but wise along his journey that many would not do, especially in his circumstances back in his household being quite wealthy. Because no one paid much attention to him at home, he twisted his life around and was very compassionate and caring for those he ran into in the wild. He dealt with life differently than most people would, but in the end found peace in himself and lasted as long as he

Chris McCandless, the subject of Jon Krakauer's “ Into The Wild,” whose off-the-grid Alaskan adventure ended in starvation is a hero, and an idealist whose sense of independence  and adventure inspires us to reach for our dreams. McCandless was a courageous man. He wanted to live a life that was completely different from the one his parents lead, and wanted to submerge himself in the world. However, most students see McCandless

Chris McCandless grasped his freedom, embarking on a journey into the Alaskan wilderness that he had “wanted to do since he was little” (Stuckey qtd. in Krakauer

“Two Years he walks the Earth, no phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes. Ultimate freedom. An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road. Escaped the Atlantic. Thou shalt not return, ‘cause “the west is the best.” And now after two rambling years comes the final and greatest adventure… bring him to the great white north. No longer to be poisoned by civilization he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become lost in the wild.” (Krakauer 163). Chris McCandless was a smart and adventurous young man who loved to challenge his abilities in the wilderness. He journeyed to Alaska to try and find himself. On this this trip, he donated and burned his money, got rid of most of his possessions, and disconnected from his friends and family

In April of 1992 a young man named Chris McCandless, from a prosperous and loving family, hitchhiked across the country to Alaska. He gave $25,000 of his savings to charity, left his car and nearly all of his possessions. He burned all the cash he had in his wallet, and created a new life. Four months later, his body was found in an abandoned bus. Jon Krakauer constructed a journalistic account of McCandless’s story. Bordering on obsession, Krakauer looks for the clues to the mystery that is Chris McCandless. What he finds is the intense pull of the wilderness on our imagination, the appeal of high-risk activities to young men. When McCandless's mistakes turn out to be fatal he is dismissed for his naiveté. He was said by some to have a

First, Krakauer uses excerpts from Christopher McCandless’s journal to give the reader insight into McCandless’s intentions and thoughts throughout his journey through the Alaskan bush to prove that McCandless did not go into the wild with the intentions of dying. By interpreting the content of the McCandless journal, Krakauer was able to determine that he was “satisfied, apparently, with what he had learned during his two months of solitary life in the wild, McCandless decided to return to civilization” (Krakauer 168). This assumption came from journal entries in which McCandless

Chris Mccandless a young reckless idiot whose path has always been lead by his selfish and arrogant behavior one of which would be fundamental and change his life forever. In August 1992 Chris Mccandless anonymously stepped outside to begin a new journey into the woods and off to alaska looking for an adventure and a different lifestyle. A lifestyle that would help Mccandless see the world in a different perspective and one in which he hoped to survive following his instincts from his ignorant mind who always seemed to leave himself towards a dangerous path. Chris Mccandless decides to run away to Alaska in order to find himself explore the outside world no matter how dangerous it can be, Mccandless’s courageous mindset has always intervened in his arrogant decisions and because of his wealthy lifestyle Mccandless was tired of experiencing his type of lifestyle so he wanted to feel the sensation of what life into the wild had to offer. Chris Mccandless’s personality was always that of getting what he wants no matter what the obstacles would be. Because Mccandless’s young mind was perhaps not the most normal and fully developed, the young man had goals and living off in the wild was perhaps one of them, he wanted to see the world in a different point of view far more different than what he was used to “He was an extremely intense and young man and possessed a streak of stubborn idealism that did not mesh readily with modern existence” (Krakauer 2). Mccandless felt as he had