Into the Wild: by Jon Krakauer

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.

Jon Krakauer had the same experience as McCandless with his family and travel to Alaska, but Krakauer knew more about survival and had company in case of any danger. Krakauer compares, “as a young man, I was unlike Mccandless in many important regard… And I suspect we had a similar intensity, a similar heedlessness, a similar agitation of the soul” (55). Acknowledging McCandless’s background, Chris left society because, in Krakauer’s point of view, of the “agitation of the soul” and the “similar heedless” of society. McCandless didn’t agree with society’s standards that being successful meant having a well paid occupation, especially when McCandless’s parents enforced it onto him. McCandless truly did not want to uphold the wishes of his parents, for Chris to go to college and get high paying career, but it wasn’t what Chris really wanted, so he left all of his conflicts with his parents and his values or “agitation of the soul” to create a new identity as Alex Supertramp and live in the wild. In today’s modern world, humanity lives in an environment where people are controlled and dependent on others. Chris’s father is someone he despises because of his characteristic of being controlling. Walter becomes controlling over Chris, who pressured him into college. As a result, Chris has an “agitation of the soul” to become independent, and a “heedlessness” for society and had an “intensity” for

One thing he said was “But I believe we were similarly affected by the skewed relationships we had with our fathers. And I suspect we had a similar intensity, a similar heedlessness, a similar agitation of the soul.” Him and Chris had similar experiences with their harsh fathers, they also shared the same hatred of conformity and society. Krakauer really does understand McCandless better than anyone else could because of all these things. You may not believe that Chris was courageous or intellectual, but it’s hard to deny the relationship between him and Krakauer.

Through this technique, Krakauer helps to develop Chris’s personality and t conveys the author’s purpose of tell McCandless’s story.

Krakauer presents this tone by quoting the McCandless family. Carine, Christopher’s younger sister, had difficulties getting over her brother’s death. “Ten months after Chris’s death, Carine still grieves deeply for her brother. “I can’t seem to get through a day without crying” ”(129). Krakauer also explains how Christopher’s family all suffered from an eating disorder and acquired unhealthy weight gain/loss. “ “I just don’t understand why he had to take those kind of chances,” Billie protests through her tears.” (132). Krakauer secretly indicates sadness within the text.

Into the Wild Rhetoric is important for almost all forms of writing. Throughout Into the Wild, ethos is important to show Krakauer’s authority and credibility on the journey of Chris McCandless. The use of ethos also helps Krakauer when he divulges into his own opinion of Chris. Krakauer creates an appeal to ethos by demonstrating his awareness and qualifications to write and make comparisons with Chris McCandless, while also showing that Chris was qualified enough to make his own decisions regarding Alaska. One of the reasons why Krakauer wrote this novel was because he felt that he and Chris had many similar traits.

Krakauer recalls “the revelation that he was merely human” and like himself, his father had made mistakes in raising him out of love and longing for success from his son. “Two decades after the fact, I discovered that my rage was gone and had been for years” (148); two decades Chris was shorted. That time, though lengthy, had potential to heal wounds inflicted by his childhood fallout with his father. Krakauer contrasts his seemingly insignificant fallout with his father to Chris’ harsh one as a reconciliation is eventually reached. Jon implies that Chris’ isolationism causes minute insanity and uses that as a distinctive difference between the two hinting that his own sanity has contributed to his current livelihood and tolerable relationship with his father. After college and maturing, Krakauer comes to the realization that his father’s actions had been for the best and had Chris not acted so rashly by beginning a nomadic life with little belongings and personal ties, he would not have died in Alaska without contact to his family, whom he had once been close

Little things in one’s childhood can affect them in the long run and affect the decisions you make. In the book, Into the Wild, the author Jon Krakauer, tries to make the valid point that Chris McCandless was a hero, a noble and inspirational character. In the book, Krakauer fails to persuade the reader into the belief of the role that Chris McCandless was a “hero.” Chris McCandless was the son of two wealthy parents, and had so much great things going for him with a chance to a good working job and great opportunities, but instead to pursue in those opportunities he decided to get rid of all his possessions, and give everything up, even his family, and went on the journey to Alaska.

3. Krakauer argues in Chapter 14 that McCandless’s death was unplanned and was a terrible accident (134). Does the book so far support that position? Do you agree with Krakauer? Why or why not?

Although Chris McCandless’ controlling and toxic family environment was a major motive for his escape, his deep-seated internal battle was simply an irresistible impulse for discovery and liberty. Chris’ journey shows a new level of freedom; what true independence holds. He set out into nature alone without support of family or friends, searching for a path unlike those of most, and running from a barred cage of conventional living. Unsatisfied and somewhat angry with himself and his life of abundance in money, opportunity, and security, his preceding experiences and determined character lead him to an inevitable flee into no-mans land. Throughout the novel, Krakauer wants the reader to understand that there is more to Chris than his habit of criticising authority and defying society’s pressures. He needed more from himself, and more from life. He wasn’t an ordinary man, therefore could not live with an ordinary life. Krakauer demonstrates this by creating a complex persona for Chris that draws you in from the beginning.

Krakauer introduces new themes and new important figures as he delves deeper into the mystery; Krakauer was the only one who published about how “his [Chris’] camera was ruined and McCandless stopped taking photographs, he also stopped writing a journal” (Krakauer 38). The anecdote was the utmost important theme discussed as almost every thought Krakauer had already happened. With such anecdotes, the reality of the situation is apparent, especially utilizing diction describing events that already happened. As Chris eventually passes in the woods and “by the time The New York Times, picked up the story about the dead hiker, the Alaska State Troopers had been trying for a week to figure out who he was” (Krakauer 98-9). The news of McCandless death materializes via anecdote, so it is to show the importance of said device.

Krakauer aligns the narrative of McCandless’ search for identity, and how family played a large role, with his own. Both embark on extreme adventures to find themselves in reaction to actions by their fathers that have caused them great pain. Learning of his father’s bigamy, McCandless thinks

Krakauer develops the parallel between McCandless and other young men in eerily similar situation. The author might do this to enrich Chris's story. All the author writes about Chris is based on testimonies and documents. We don't know with certainty what Chris's thought process. By introducing the stories of Gene Rosellini, and Ruess Everett, the readers are able to put the different pieces together and infer Chris' state of mind and motivations.

Christopher McCandless may be one of the most intriguing characters in nonfiction literature. In Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer, Chris McCandless gives up all of his worldly possessions in order to move to Alaska and travel alone into the wilderness. Chris seemed to lead a very privileged life, as he came from a fairly well off family. Chris was intelligent, having graduated from Emory University with a degree in anthropology and history. There is much ambiguity as to why Chris suddenly decides to leave his family behind and travel by himself -- although it is clear that Chris’s initial belief was that the best way to live life was alone, surrounded by nature. The overarching question is whether Chris intentionally tried to kill himself when he traveled alone into the heart of Alaska. Those who believe he did contend that he did not make enough of an effort to extract himself from the negative situations in which he found himself. They argue that Chris felt that he was betrayed by his father, and that he tries to kill himself in order to get away from his family as a whole. Yet Chris McCandless did not in fact have a death wish, and his death was the result of his miscalculating how difficult living in the wild would actually be. This resulted from Chris’s excessive pride. His main motivation to go into the wild was to run far away from his family -- who by blinding him, indirectly caused him to miscalculate.

Even though he doesn’t always live up to his beliefs they are the most important part of McCandless’s identity because that is how he sees