The first Chapter tells the readers about Jim Gallien, a union electrician, and his encounter with a hitchhiker. The hitchhiker introduces himself as Alex from South Dakota, although his real name is Christopher Johnson McCandless, originally from Virginia. Chris tells Gallien that he “want[s] a ride as far as the edge of Denali National Park, where he intend[s] to walk deep into the bush and “live off the land for a few months”” (Krakauer 4). Gallien admits that he believed Chris would be another “of those crackpots from the lower forty-eight who come north to live out ill-considered Jack London fantasies” (Krakauer 4), but he soon realizes that Chris knew exactly what he was letting himself in for.
In his book Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer explores the impossibility of attaining complete self-reliance, revealing how eternally elusive it is. Krakauer suggests to the reader that Chris McCandless is not an independent, young man capable of walking into the wild self-sufficiently, alluding to the idea that in order to reach an autonomous state, McCandless had to rely on other things to get him there. Krakauer supports the suggestion that McCandless was not independent with the notion that when confronted with opportunities, McCandless chose to take what was presented to him rather than work for what he needed. A way in which Krakauer expresses self-reliance as being impractical is when McCandless decides to “take advantage of [the bus’]
This book starts with the founding of Christopher McCandless’s body by a bunch of Alaskan hunters in a bus. The law enforcement then comes to remove his body. Jon Krakauer writes about this while writing for “Outside Magazine” and become very curious about this story. To find out more Krakauer pays a visit to a man named Wayne Westerberg, who says that he knew Christopher McCandless as “Alex McCandless” and he then gives a sketch of the young man’s character while in Carthage Wisconsin. He states that he used McCandless from time to time on his grain elevator and from his memories views him as participating, smart, and determined.
The way Krakauer writes this story is very different from most other books. He writes it in nonlinear narrative, a literary technique used when writing linearly has many more disadvantages. It works in this particular story because one’s interest is peaked right off the bat as he describes how Chris McCandless was found dead in an abandoned bus. The text states “Chris McCandless had been dead for two and a half weeks” (Krakauer 13).
In the book Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer describes and investigates the true story of Christopher McCandless, a youthful graduate of Emory university in Atlanta. In september of 1922, Chris’s body is found in an abandoned bus in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness. Prior to his death at 24 years of age, McCandless grew up in the well to do suburb of Annandale Virginia with his family and he had always been a terrific athlete and scholar from the start. Before moving on to college, Christopher goes on a summer long road trip across the country in which he discovers that his father Walter had secretly maintained a relationship with his first wife even after marrying his second wife which Chris’s mom. McCandless bottles this growing anger about
In the Novel “Into the Wild” written by Jon Krakauer a student by the name of Chris McCandless graduates for Emory University and plans to go on a journey since he is done with college. Chris gets all of his college funds and donates them to the Oxfam organization, which is an organization that helps stop poverty and hunger in the United States. When he starts his journey he ceases talking to anyone including his family because he doesn’t want them to stop him and think he is a psychopath. Chris McCandless wants to go on a journey to a trail in Alaska. While hitchhiking to Alaska he ditches all his belongings and his car because of a flash flood.
answers, Krakauer develops his own theory that McCandless consciously chose to avoid any human relationship after his separation from his family, so that he could bear, without fully appreciating, the loss of such relationships. For example, Krakauer states that McCandless continued to head north after Ron Franz, an elderly man who treated McCandless as his son, expressed a desire to adopt him. He explains, “McCandless was thrilled to be on his way north…relieved that he had again evaded the impending threat of human intimacy, of friendship, and all the emotional baggage that comes with it. He had fled the catastrophic confines of his family. He’s successfully kept Jane Burres and Wayne Westerberg at arm’s length, flitting out of their lives before anything was expected of him.
Jon Krakauer's Into The WIld glorifies the journey of a young man, Chris McCandless. In efforts to make his life better by living in solitude, McCandless traveled all across America for two years exploring all different places to find a challenging, yet hospitable, place for him to leave. Chris took this step in his life to escape family issues and harassment and successfully lived for two years as Alex McCandless traveling through the West, South, and making his way to the Alaskan wilderness where he unfortunately faced his downfall. In August of 1992 on the Alaskan Stampede trail, Chris died of starvation, and Krakauer tracked his footsteps and journey after three years to understand Chris as person and why he made the decisions he made.
At the beginning of the chapter, we learn that many people who read the January 1993 edition of Outside felt that McCandless was mentally disturbed. The story generated a large volume of mail on what many thought was the glorification of a foolish death. Most of the negativity came from Alaskan citizens. Everyone commented on how there was nothing positive about Chris or the journey that he was taking. Nick Jans, a schoolteacher, wrote the most critical note to Krakauer.
Zoe Engel 6-19-23 Mr. Selfridge Period: 2 Stepping Into the Wilderness The work of nonfiction Into The Wild, by Jon Krakauer, tells the true story of Chris McCandless, an adventurous young man, who leaves home to travel around the continent eventually setting foot into the Alaskan wilderness on a journey that becomes fatal. Highlighted throughout this work of nonfiction is the true story of McCandless’s life, along with bits of Krakauer’s personal life as it relates to McCandless’s. Each chapter begins with at least one epigraph that shares common themes with the following chapter. The focus in this paper will be on chapter 14, “The Stikine Ice Cap,” in which Krakauer shares his experience climbing the Devil’s Thumb in Alaska, and the second
In the Non Fiction book Into the Wild, By Jon Krakauer, a man's journey of a lifetime is described and looked at by many. This is not something written for information, or even entertainment, rather it is written to for anyone who can connect on a spiritual level of what McCandless was doing. Although he was a great scholar with an exceptional lifestyle, he did not believe he was living to his full potential. Something he came to understand when he finds out one that he loves, his father, isn’t who he thought he was. Living a double life with his old wife, which infuriated Christopher and ultimately led to him denouncing his father, and literally forging his own path.
A journalist by the name of Jon Krakauer wrote the book “Into The Wild”. He used this piece of literature to persuade to the audience that McCandless is inspiring and courageous role model. Going out into the world showed how others can connect to Mccandless and it would withhold judgment. An inspiring person is someone who shows others the urge or ability to do or feel something that may be creative,risk taking and or challenging. Krakauer is proving how McCandlesses adventurous actions proves he had a lot of courage meaning he was not deterred by danger or pain.
Facts are an important thing in society,but it’s quite often that emotions and opinions get thrown into the mixture. In Jon Krakauer’s national bestseller Into The Wild,he writes about a young man named Christopher Johnson McCandless,a man quite similar to Krakauer,both of them being adventurers of the wild. Into The Wild is a non-fiction book about the life of McCandless,a young man who leaves without a trace,hitchhiking his way across the U.S. on a journey to Alaska,wanting to free himself from social shackles and go into the wild. McCandless is very similar to Krakauer,who also has trekked through the wild many times,and that’s why he depicts Chris with a lot of bias. Krakauer writes Into The Wild in a way that depicts Chris as some sort
Have you ever wondered what it is like to live in the wild, and become a whole new person, or what it is like to live in the wild to find yourself? Well if you have then I recommend that you read the book titled ¨Into the wild¨ written by Jon Krakauer. In this book there is a man named Chris McCandless who left society and went into the wilderness of Alaska and cut off all contact with the outside world. He wanted to find himself, and become a better person. Some may believe that Chris went into the wild to escape a toxic relationship with his parents, but the real reason he left everything was he wanted to find himself, and he felt as if he could function without everyday things.
Based on a real story, Into the Wild can make us think from different perspectives about what the main character Christopher McCandless did. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer is a dramatic but also remarkable story from a young, newly graduated, college student that escaped for a long wild journey but never came back. As time passes throughout the book, the reader may notice how the main character interacts with society and nature, finally McCandless dies in the wild but even though he was struggling for survival he died happy. Some people never get out of their comfort zone, others are tired of it and retire from their comfort zone to have different experiences in life, some are good enough or some are terrible.