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

In the novel “Into The Wild” written by Jon Krakauer, a man named Christopher McCandless ventures into Alaska’s unknown territory in search of his spirit. McCandless begins this journey immediately following his graduation from Emory University; similar to a nationwide road trip taken right after his high school graduation. Growing up, McCandless lived a very privileged life. Many would say he was ungrateful, selfish and stupid for his actions and motives. Others would gaze upon him as a hero and wish they could have the courage he did to chase his dream and be so passionate until his death. All in all, people would argue that McCandless had a mental illness or went on these trips because he was persuaded by literature or had philosophical

This did not change his outlook on his parents. Most conflict came from his father but occasionally both parents would upset Chris. McCandless’ relationship with his father were certainly not perfect. Both men had very stubborn personalities and got offended towards each other very easily; especially Chris. His mother on the other hand was very fair with Chris. Following his graduation from college McCandless’ parents purchased a new car only for him. McCandless took very much offense to this due to him already having a reliable car that he enjoyed very much. This is usually not something a kid would be upset about, but it went against one of his main morals. McCandless’ parents showered him multiple times in materialistic gifts not realizing that all he really wanted was the natural things in life.This car incident was not the first something like this happened and because of that, Chris took the choice of taking a nationwide trip after his high school graduation and an even longer trip after his college

Tolstoy was most relatable to McCandless because he was also born into an upper-class family, yet chose to abandon his old life to seek out his philosophical beliefs and outlooks on life. According to Krakauer, a reason McCandless set out on the journey that he did was because he had found out one of his favorite authors found inspiration after abandoning everything. Many readers believe this to be true, however, the circumstances were very different to Thoreau’s due to the fact that McCandless took his adventure’s location to a much higher extreme. Not only this, but Thoreau had been much more prepared for his experience than McCandless as far as material goes. McCandless had mainly brought a 10 pound bag of rice, a 22 rifle, a pair of non waterproof boots and other miscellaneous objects. Even before his expedition McCandless had met a man that offered him better supplies than McCandless chose to carry which resulted in a rejected