Chris is a hard worker who went through many difficulties to achieve his goals of adventures. He also is firm in his beliefs. In into the wild Jon Krakauer characterize Chris McCandless as hard working and firm. Chris could best be described as a hard worker. No matter what Chris worked for everything he got and he did not take handouts.
Into the Wild, a book by Jon Krakauer, records the true story of Chris McCandless and his journey into the Alaskan Wilderness. Most who read the book find it to be an inspiration and see Chris as a heroic voyager who braved the Alaskan wilderness. But with a deeper look into the story, it becomes more evident that Chris was actually more depressed than brave To start, Chris was completely unprepared. He chose to venture into the dangerous unknown of the Alaskan wilderness with nothing but a gun, some rice, a few books, and what clothes he had on. Even when he was offered some food and supplies by the man who dropped him off, he insisted that he didn’t want any, saying,”Before Alex left, he reached behind his seat, pulled out an old
In the book Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, Chris McCandless is presumed dead after abandoning his parents without their knowledge to go across the United Stated and Canada to reach Alaska. Advancing on his journey he has not only changed his name to Alexander Supertramp, but also encountered many people along the way. These people have helped him survive by giving him shelter and food for the couple of nights that he stayed with them. As he traveled on his Journey he sent back many postcards to his friends that he has made on the way during the journey updating them on his current position as well as informing them put any more people that he met on his journey. When the people that had postcards found out that he was dead they were devastated
In the novel Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, Chris McCandless travels from Vermont all the way to Alaska into Denali national park. The way he decided to go through with his travels is considered to be unjust by most. Although his actions were not ideal he was happy with them and this was how he decided to go through with his plans. He gave away all of his money and material items just so that he could get rid of the thought of his family and, in a way, start his own. Chris McCandless was in fact just in his actions because of his legal rights of freedom of speech and he never stayed with anyone long enough for them to persuade him to not go to Alaska.
“I don’t want to know what time it is. I don’t want to know what day it is or where I am. None of that matters” (Krakauer 7). In Krakauer’s novel, Into the Wild, one of the key themes is the fact that the main character, Chris McCandless, values his principles more than his own family, possessions, or the people he cares about.
McCandless is a caring and modest person while he was been thoughtless about his trek as Krakauer reveals throughout the book. Krakauer portrays Chris McCandless as a person in the world who did not wish to ally with society and wanted to flee from people to become unrestricted of rules of society. Also, he did not feel attached to his community and people so he decided to escape from public as much as he could. Therefore, McCandless can be called as unintelligent, but his journey proves how humble and warm- hearted he is as a person. Can it be said that McCandless found himself before his death?
As society tends to bond closer to things with no value rather than to stuff that matters the most. In the novel titled “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer the main character Christopher McCandless depart from the materialistic items created by Americans in search for a better life. McCandless rejects his family’s upper middle-class ways in which he was raised and begins his odyssey into the wild. First off, McCandless was raised in Annandale, Virginia, with a father who worked as an aerospace engineer, a mother who accompanied him on business trips and a younger sister Carine. He graduated Emory University with a degree in history and anthropology and had nearly $24,000 saved up to go to law school.
Chris McCandless was insane to leave his life behind for the wilderness and was just as ignorant as he was insane about the wild itself. However, it was very clear that this journey of Chris was not just meant as some mere adventure for fun, but as a way for Chris to search for himself in the process. Chris was a very bright and educated individual. He even graduated from Emory University. He was also known for being a talented and well rounded individual, according to his parents.
“If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be.” ―Maya Angelou. Jon Krakauer’s true story titled Into the Wild is about a man who decides to throw away his old life and escape the rules of conventional society. Twenty-two-year-old Chris McCandless came from a well-to-do family in Virginia and, without warning, abandons everything. He changes his name, loses contact with his family, gives away his car and all his money, and begins a two-year long journey hitchhiking to Alaska where he eventually dies of starvation.
Miller states in his article “Tragedy and the Common Man” that to be a tragic hero, one must fit into certain criteria. One of them includes the hero’s primary struggle to search for their sense of dignity and identity. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer is a book about Chris McCandless who abandons his current life to explore the world in search of his real self but dies in the process. He fits this particular criteria about being a tragic hero because he abandoned everything he had som he could go find himself. McCandless did not think this decision through because he had no idea what he was getting himself into and as miller says the protagonist cannot be stupid, insensitive, or incapable of overcoming obstacles.
Realist: This means to have an understanding of what can be accomplished. By using this word, Krakauer was able to let the readers know that he viewed McCandless as more of a realist than an idealist. Being a realist is a noble trait, due to its denotation meaning of the word which implies that one knows their own limit and weakness and knows how to set forth and complete a goal. Ambivalent about killing animals: The meaning of the phrase is having mixed or contradictory feelings or ideas about killing animals.
Chris McCandless was thought of as an outcast who was mentally unstable for going on his journey into the wild. Chris was a visionary who didn’t want to go along with society. He was smart and had a great education. Some wonder why he left his life in which he had a high chance of being successful behind to start a new one. He just wanted to be free and live the way he wanted.
Most people in modern society measure success by wealth and social status, they conform to a dull life of security and stability. Christopher McCandless also known as “Alexander Supertramp” was not one of them. Chris McCandless went on an extended journey to Alaska which ended up costing him his life, many critics question if it was worth the hassle and what were his motives to embark on this solitary journey. Christopher McCandless was no ordinary member of society, he defined success as finding truth and happiness, and for him the only way there, was Alaska. Many interpretations of Chris’s purpose for his journey have been made public; the most popular is from the author Jon Krakauer.
If someone has not suffered a similar inner turmoil, it would be easy for them to misunderstand his actions and assume that he was just an uneducated, crazy man. Chris McCandless despised the phoniness of the world around him and wanted to escape it by engaging in a, “climactic battle to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual revolution” (pg. 112). These thoughts are similar to those experienced by people who struggle with depression. Chris McCandless felt that he was living in a world full of superficial beings whose only concern was what other people thought of them. His solution was to journey into the wild where he would, “no longer answer to Chris McCandless he was now Alexander Supertramp, master of his own destiny” (pg. 18).
In his journey Chris discovered that, while beautiful, nature also had a deadly side. Chris was one of the unfortunate souls to end up dead on his quest of self-reliance. His death sparked a debate on whether what he did was incredibly brave, or completely idiotic. Although in the end he found peace stating in his journal “ ‘I have had a happy life and thank the Lord and may God bless all’”.
