He often reconnected with them and told him about his travels through postcards, up until his final trip into Alaska. As hard as McCandless tried to distance himself from these relationships, he always ended up staying in touch because it is human nature to interact with other humans. As he cut off all communications to people and entered the wild, he experienced true loneliness. In his final days he writes “I am injured, near death, and too weak to hike out of here. I am all alone. This is no joke” (PAGE). In a final plea for help, McCandless tries to get help and return to society, but his efforts are too little too late. He only realizes the benefits human interaction can bring, like more knowledge, when he needs help because he is too weak to help himself. At this moment, McCandless feels truly alone, because for the first time in his life there is not a single person around to help him.
Chris McCandless was a complex, if not contradictory person. He was warm and friendly towards others, yet he avoided long-term relationships with those he met on his journey. Also, he was strongly independent, yet graciously accepted rides as a hitchhiker. Chris was also a paradox in that he was ashamed of his wealth, yet was successful at making a profit. However, Chris was above all, a sojourner. He sought to live apart from human civilization, apart from government authority, and liberated from a life that was dependent on a multitude of material possessions.
Most people go into the wilderness to go camping for a week or less and then leave. Some people stay for more than a week. Chris McCandless was in the wild for at least one hundred days.“ I’ve decided to live this life for some time to come. The freedom and the beauty of it is too good to pass up.”(pg.92) He went into the wilderness to experience adventure and to find things he was searching for nature, the path to happiness and freedom. Chris’ determination, self will, pursuit of happiness and the urge to break free are all explored. He did everything he could to make so people would be able to find him. Changing his name to Alex Supertramp, eliminating everything
In order for readers to distance themselves from making quick judgements about McCandless, the author gives many detailed interviews of people who have spent some time with him before and during his journey into the wild. Those interviews follow a similar structure: they are critical of McCandless at first but are later charmed by his intelligence and determination. In the first chapter, Gallien has picked up McCandless on the highway and he immediately wonders “whether he’d pick up one of those crackpots [...] liv[ing] out ill-considered Jack London fantasies” (4).
In the summer of 1990, Christopher McCandless dropped off of the face of the earth. McCandless ended all contact with his family, told no one where he was going, changed his name, and abandoned all ties to his previous life. There have been many disputes as to why McCandless chose to embark on his adventure. Based on the information presented in Jon Krakauer's novel, Into the Wild, it seems that Chris McCandless’s ultimately unsuccessful journey was spurred by his desire to escape his emotional baggage and monetary stress from his life in Virginia.
McCandless was very intrigued with literature and related it to his own life as many ways as possible. When McCandless read a piece of literature that he felt
Despite how well off Christopher McCandless seems to be with easy access to money and a high quality education, but his life wasn’t always perfect. He went through a dysfunctional family while growing up, which was possibly a key cause in why he went into the wilderness. Also he showed signs of philosophical beliefs by how he didn’t follow anything hardly of the law. McCandless was strongly against the fact of being controlled, he made that clear by stating to Gallien when he asked if he had a hunting license “Hell no, how I feed myself is none of the government’s business. Fuck their stupid rules” (Krakauer 6). This is possibly another problem that convinced him to go out on his own away from the two issues he had.
In the novel, Into the wild, author Jon Krakauer follows the journey of Chris McCandless. Chris McCandless is a twenty-four year's old boy who graduated from college when he decides to leave his family to go into the wilderness. Although Chris McCandless’s journey proves fatal, he lives on through the ongoing debate whether he was ignorant or not. According to the article, “The beatification of Chris McCandless”, Medrid shares the feelings of many readers who believe McCandless was selfish, arrogant, and ignorant. However, Chris McCandless was not what people thought of.
Chris McCandless’s personality traits can described many different ways, and his actions of going into the wild can not always be interpreted. Why did go into the wild, what was he seeking is a question for many. I believe that McCandless went into the wild to start a new life. After reading the novel, “Into the Wild” I strongly believe that Chris McCandless is adventurous, rebellious, and overconfident.
Many people have different opinions on McCandless’ journey. There are some that believe that he was inspiring and adventurous, while there were others that believed he was foolish and selfish. Personally, I believe McCandless did the journey due to a mental illness and family problems. According to the book, McCandless had difficulties getting along with his parents and just wanted to disappear from Carthage, South Dakota. In the book “Into the WIld”, Krakauer quotes McCandless saying,”I think I’m going to be disappearing for a while” (21). This is what McCandless told his parents about him going away after he graduates. Krakauer also listed the different letters that McCandless sent to his sister and parents. In his letter to his sister, Carine, McCandless
McCandless believed his own skills would be enough to survive in the wild, and his reliance on being able to survive on his own shows his self-reliance. Wayne Westerberg described McCandless as “the hardest worker I’ve ever seen. Didn’t matter what it was, he’d do it: hard physical labor, mucking rotten grain and dead rats out of the bottom of the hold -jobs where you get so [badly] dirty you couldn’t even tell what you looked like at the end of the day” (Krakauer, 18). He got the terrible jobs done and didn’t rely
Chris McCandless is the main character from the book Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, he is a idealistic man who beliefs that life should be spent out in the wild. He took a journey all the way to Alaska by himself leaving his whole life and family behind to pursue his dream. On his way to Alaska he faced many obstacles and got through them with the help of several people whom he met throughout this journey. Jan Burres, Ronald Franz and Westerberg are some of the people whom Chris interacted with leaving them behind with different impressions on each of them.
This expresses how McCandless was a dreamer we all were because he abandoned everything in order to escape the problems he faced in his home. For instance, his family was verbally and physically abused by his father at a young age and was not able to do anything about it. As a result, in order to escape from the tension at home, he decided to seek a safe place away from the abuse in the wilderness. McCandless also decided to hit the road because he hated how his parents lived a very materialistic life, so when his parents tried pushing that life onto him he grew more and more distant from them. I believe McCandless was seeking for a gateway from the materialistic life and the abuse, so he went into the wild where money does not play much of a role and he wouldn’t get too attached to people he met along the
The author clearly has a strong like for McCandless, and he tries to use the story to make readers feel the same way as he does. McCandless isn’t as great as Krakauer makes him seem. He’s just some rich kid who has always been able to do whatever he wants. He was sheltered, he was mean, he only cared about
Chad Bagwell, a 2005 graduate of Pickens High School and native of the Jerusalem area, said in a phone interview Monday that he might be this generation’s Chris McCandless, (the main character of the book/movie Into the Wild).