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

Following the article “ Death of an Innocent Man”, written in Outside magazine, Jon Krakauer, an adventurous man himself, authored Into the Wild- a narrative regarding Chris McCandless.Twenty-four year old Chris McCandless embarked on what he saw as the adventure of his lifetime, and the opportunity for ultimate freedom- resulting in the end of his life. With his death, many criticized Chris saying he was a”kook”, and a fool for “entering the wild ill-prepared” (71). Krakauer however disagrees, in identifying himself with McCandless, he writes Into the Wild in order to divert readers from believing McCandless was crazy, vindicating Chris, and his reasoning, through personal encounters, background family history, and relativity to Krakauer’s

Chris resigned life as he knew it in 1992, and would be never to return. Along his journey he met several people with whom he bonded with more so than his own family. McCandless never had a great relationship with his parents due to clash of lifestyles, and that strain would grow deeper as he grew older and more distant. Chris wasn’t materialist, yet his family was well off, offering to purchase him schooling, new cars, and other fancy things. Chris specifically never saw eye to eye with his father, Walt, with the knowledge of Walt’s affair and the dismay it caused his mother. McCandless had always shown a desire to venture out past the “norms”. After graduating high school, Chris set out on a summer long trip across the country, getting lost in the “Mojave desert and had nearly succumbed to dehydration” (118). During this trip, Chris had promised to stay in touch with his parents but failed to do so, only returning “home” two days before leaving again to college- which he was forced to go to before setting out for the wild.Chris drove from Virginia and explored the Western United States, during which he lost thirty pounds. This wouldn’t be the last time Chris would be to lose an exceptional amount of weight over a short time span, in August (just four short months after leaving for Alaska), Chris

Everett Ruess was a young man, fathered by a Harvard graduate. Both Chris McCandless and Everett Ruess were in well-off families, but couldn't relate to the desire for materialistic goods and money, and were to “spend the remainder of [their] life on the move, living out of a backpack on very little money… cheerfully going hungry for days at a time” (90). Ruess, like McCandless, also died in the wild while on an adventure. Krakauer then relates Chris to himself in chapter fourteen, and his own wanderings. At twenty three years old (one year younger than McCandless, Krakauer set out for Alaska to rock climb a mountain called The Devil’s Thumb. Like McCandless, Krakauer not only had a calling for nature, but a severed relationship with his father, always seemingly failing to meet his expectations (146). Towards the end of his expedition, Krakauer came to the realization that he was unprepared for the climb, “[carrying] no rope, no tent or bivouac gear, and no hardware to save [him]” (152). McCandless went into the bush unprepared with a run down map, and not enough food for survival, like Krakauer facing an ultimatum to give up on the goal he tried so hard for, or continue on. The difference between Krakauer and McCAndless is that Krakauer knew when to give up, but McCAndless continued during a weak state, ultimately bringing him to his death bed.