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Analysis Of Chris Mccandless In Into The Wild, By Jon Krakauer

1199 Words5 Pages

In the novel, Into the Wild, author Jon Krakauer presents the journey and life story of Christopher McCandless, a twenty-two-year-old adventurer from Annandale, Virginia. Chris McCandless, also known by the alias Alexander Supertramp, abandoned his former life in the suburbs of Virginia and traveled into the Alaskan wilderness in an attempt to escape the materialistic ideals of society. After one hundred and thirteen days in the wilderness, McCandless passes away due to starvation. Along with his decomposing body, cryptic messages from his diary are found indicating that he was gradually perishing. Throughout the novel, Krakauer admits to seeing himself in McCandless’ actions. He goes on to parallel his own altercations with his father, Lewis …show more content…

Attacking Krakauer’s supposed glorification of Chris McCandless, Medred believes that McCandless is nothing more than “a poacher, a bum and a thief”. While Medred utilizes irony and pathos throughout his article, author Jon Krakauer does a superior job at writing about the story of Chris McCandless due to his distinguished use of indirect characterization, parallelism, analepsis, and the rhetorical devices of ethos and pathos. Krakauer applies his ability to relate to McCandless due to their similar adversities and demonstrates his utmost care towards discovering the truth of Chris’ story, while Medred fails to identify Chris’ past and presents his profound partiality. Jon Krakauer’s ultimate dedication to displaying the true events of Chris’s journey is displayed through his dedication to interviewing Chris’ relatives. While interviewing Chris’ sister, Carine, Krakauer determines that “‘Chris was crazy about Buck,’ Carine says… ‘Chris didn’t think twice about risking his own life, but he never would have put Buckley in any kind of danger’” (Krakauer 128). Through Carine’s interview, …show more content…

Throughout Medred’s article, his critical and aggressive tone are clear indicators of his negative feelings towards McCandless. Krakauer, however, does an exceptional job of addressing his pathos. From the very beginning of the novel, Krakauer states that he “won’t claim to be an impartial biographer. McCandless’s strange tale struck a personal note that made a dispassionate rendering of the tragedy impossible” (Krakauer 2). Krakauer relays that he does not claim to be an unbiased narrator while Medred fails to acknowledge his implicit bias. Throughout Medred’s article, it is clear from his intense tone and emotional diction that he has a very skewed view of McCandless. Conversely, Krakauer does not use pathos in the way Medred does, and his acknowledgment of partiality escalates the reliability of his source. However, others may argue that Krakauer overly glamorizes McCandless’ journey in comparison to Medred. Others may state that Into the Wild leaves out vital information, yet Medred’s article includes it. For example, Medred writes about how “McCandless headed southwest and illegally slipped into Mexico packing a handgun. He then equally illegally re-entered the U.S., still packing heat” (Medred 2). While Medred did include a segment of Chris’ journey which Krakauer

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Analysis Of Mccandless In Into The Wild By Jon Krakauer

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In the beginning of chapter 8, Krakauer blatantly states all these strangers’ opinions about McCandless’s death to the reader. These honest and blunt opinions that were stated against McCandless causes one to realize that McCandless’s peril was one hundred percent absurd and puerile. After reading others opinions on his death, it made me resent McCandless even more than I did. “Personally I see nothing positive at all about Chris McCandless’s lifestyle or wilderness doctrine.” (page 71) another opinion states, “McCandless had already gone over the edge and just happened to hit bottom in Alaska.”

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In the biography Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer holds Chris McCandless in high esteem and shows this admiration by including narrative that shows what makes Chris Special. In the story, whenever Krakauer records people's experiences with Chris he always makes sure Chris is seen in a good light. When Chris was hitchhiking and picked up by a man named Jim Gallien, Jim thought that Chris was an idiot for not packing enough equipment and trying to go live in the woods. However, during the ride Chris peppers Jim with sensible questions making Jim realizes that Chris is not as much, “as a nutcase” as he thought. (Krakauer 5) Krakauer included how Chris was thinking on how to survive.

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Additionally, Medred provides little to no solid evidence, and the evidence he does present is obscure at best, rendering his use of logos useless as his claims are difficult to rationalize. Thus, through seamless use of ethos, pathos, and logos, Krakauer’s representation of Chris McCandless’s story is superior to Medred’s interpretation on the grounds of clearly communicated bias and neutrality, a lack of forceful opinion, and perspicuous evidence-based conclusions. Throughout the entirety of his novel, Krakauer utilizes ethos to clearly portray his own biases and build the credibility of McCandless’s personal accounts, allowing the reader to decide the weight his words hold for themselves. He states in the author’s note that “I won’t claim to be an impartial biographer.

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By using these strategies, Krakauer was successful in proving his point to the audience as he is able to evoke an empathetic response from the readers, put the story into a perspective that made the audience view the nature and the wilderness in the same way Chris saw it, and allowed them to connect Chris’s story with other people’s stories that have similar aspects to his, and create their own understanding of why Chris did what he did. Krakauer gains knowledge from sources with experience in the wild and knows the ins and outs of living in isolation while in harsh conditions. Krakauer also obtains evidence from first hand sources who knew or had important interactions with McCandless so that he could write this book with enough understanding and information to prove his main idea. Ultimately, Jon Krakauer portrays the idea that Chris McCandless had much deeper internal reasons, than what might be seen from the surface, that explain why he felt the strong compulsion to venture into the wild in complete isolation, away from the constraints he felt in society, to find what he was looking for in

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All the while Krakauer early on gave the reader his opinion about McCandless expressing “McCandless was something else-although precisely what is hard to say. A pilgrim, perhaps” (pg. 85). The author reveals his views almost halfway into the book. This

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The way Krakauer organizes Into the Wild helps support his argument towards Christopher McCandless and to the responses received by the article Krakauer had written earlier on McCandless and about his trip. Krakauer gives the readers background information for most of the book, along with excerpts from McCandless’s journal he seldom kept. McCandless’s journal entries include statements such as, “MOOSE!” on June 6th when he shot a moose instead of squirrels, and different types of birds which he had been eating since he got to the bus (Krakauer 166). McCandless’s last writing reads, “ I have had a happy life and thank the Lord.

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He quotes extensively from McCandless's journals and letters, allowing readers to glimpse into his inner thoughts and feelings. For example, when McCandless reflects on his decision to leave his old life behind, he writes, "Rather than love, than money, than faith, than fame, than fairness...give me truth" (Krakauer 42). Krakauer also uses vivid imagery to describe the natural world that McCandless encounters on his journey. In one passage, he writes, "The high, lonesome moan of the train whistle, screaming across the flats, hammers home the desolation of the landscape...

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Into the Wild tells the story of Chris McCandless, a young man who embarked on an adventure across the U.S. Chris lived for adventure, and sadly met his demise in the Alaskan wilderness. Chris’ death brought about a large debate as to whether Chris was insane or simply idealistic. Krakauer wrote Into the Wild to prove Chris’ sanity and soundly completes that task by using rhetorical devices to persuade his audience. Throughout the book, Krakauer uses ethos to develop Chris’ credibility by providing examples of people who are similar to him. For example, Krakauer provides multiple examples of people who were very similar to Chris, such as Everett Ruess.

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McCandless is, finally, just a pale 20th-century burlesque of London’s protagonist, who freezes because he ignores advice and commits big time hubris) .... His ignorance, which could have been cured by a USGS quadrant and a Boy Scout manual, is what killed him.” (Krakauer, 51). This added quote supports the claim that because of the underlying theme of McCandless’s arrogance it caused him to go into the Alaskan wilderness ill-equipped and unprepared which eventually led to his untimely

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