Chris McCandless was an intelligent young man who sought adventure and freedom. In the summer of 1992, he ventured off into the cold brush of Alaska and died of starvation. Before his adventure, he lived with his parents and his sister. He also had six half siblings due to a divorce his father had before McCandless had been born. McCandless excelled academically through high school and through college, and he later double majored in history and anthropology. Shortly after graduating with his bachelor’s degree, McCandless donated all his savings to charity and adopted a nomadic lifestyle of adventure.
Jon Krakauer, author of the nonfiction novel, Into the Wild, is widely known for his writing and mountaineering. In 1993, Krakauer published
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While he was very good at the different sports and activities he participated in, strategy, nuance, and anything beyond that was of no concern to McCandless. The only way McCandless would attempt a challenge was “head-on, right now” and apply the “full brunt of his extraordinary energy.” (111)
Krakauer shared common attributes similar with McCandless in his youth. Both “mistook passion for insight” and both ended up making “gap-ridden” choices. (155) However, both were driven by a similar goal; To have joy and happiness in life. Krakauer defines the similarities he shared with McCandless by relating stories of other men who disappeared into the wilderness, and by also sharing his own experience of his attempt to climb Devil’s Thumb in Alaska. Both Individuals sought to live life in a way that would (at first) seem like a happy lifestyle.
Nonetheless, there were parts of the book that were very irritating. For example, Krakauer kept relating other stories of men who had wandered off and vanished into the wilderness. About halfway through the book in the middle of the climax, Krakauer would jump to a new chapter and relate three stories of men who vanished and died in the wilderness. While these stories were somewhat fascinating, Krakauer should have just simply continued with the original story of Chris