Jon Krakauer immediately conveys an image of McCandless in the first few pages of Into the Wild. The issue of his subjective narrative arises when the protagonist is described as a young man, “shivering in the grey Alaskan dawn” (Krakauer 1996:3). The reader is not sure whether the descriptions are literary techniques applied by Krakauer to convey his imagination of McCandless or if it based on facts provided to him by Gallien, who is an Alaskan union electrician, and gave McCandless a ride until he dropped him off close to the edges of the Alaskan Range. One of McCandless’ answer to not having a hunting license is “How I feed myself is none of the government’s business. Fuck their stupid rules” (6). This strengthens McCandless’ rebellious …show more content…
For example, when he was dropped off somewhere on a street the “the icy summits of the highest mountain range in North America gleamed on the south-western horizon” (7). Krakauer could have just omitted this part because it seems unlikely that Gallien reported to him about the surrounding mountain atmosphere, more unlikely in a manner as detailed and descriptive as the words “icy” and “gleam” would imply. This reveals a rather passionate and figurative point of view of the author and relates back to the discussion of the blurred line between fiction and non-fiction. Landscape descriptions are one literary tool applied in fiction to create a more imaginative atmosphere. This is uncommon in non-fiction, on the other hand, as it is not fact based or objective but the origin of the author’s mind. By using “icy” and “gleam” Krakauer might be telling us that the nature of Northern Alaska is beautiful and untouched but at the same time not a place where humans usually spend a longer time period. In this case the describing the surrounding landscape serves as a depiction of an inhospitable, unforgiving place potentially foreshadowing that this nature will be McCandless