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

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

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,

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