Death. While the outcome is the same for everyone, no two people live the same lives. Ivan Ilych was a character in Leo Tolstoy 's novel The Death of Ivan Ilych. Ivan was a selfish lawer who was unhappy with his life until right before he died. Portrayed in the movie Into the Wild, Christopher McCandless was a free spirit he did what he want when he wanted. Ivan and Chris were completely different people one was a formalist and the other was a maverick, but in the end it didn 't matter how different they were because they found true happiness in death. Ivan constantly tried to conform to society and its laws. Ivan subconsciously wanted to be an individual but he constantly suppressed those urges to fit in. He wanted to follow the path that society lead him on. In doing so, …show more content…
He was not concerned with the trivial details of life that most people would have. He constantly tried to get away from society. Chris never wanted to stay in a place for too long. He had a mentality of “Don’t come closer or I’ll have to go / Holding me like gravity are places that pull” (Vedder, Guaranteed). Whenever Chris got close to someone he would always leave. In Penns movie, Into the Wild, He left his parents, and multiple people he met along his journey. People would grow attached to Chris, like the free spirited couple he met on the road and the old man who loved him so much he wanted to adopt him, but Chris was selfish and left. He wanted to go to Alaska so badly that he just wanted to leave his whole life behind. Chris trying to leave society makes his disregard the rules and laws that society put in place. To kayak down a river Chris needed a license but when he applied the waitlist was too long so he disregarded the waitlist and went kayaking down the river. Chris also knows money makes people cautious which is why he doesn 't need it. Chris burns all of his money and gives some to charity because he thinks money and power are an
I think Chris McCandless felt unfufilled in his life of privilege, and wanted to go out and experience life how he wanted to for awhile, and live freely. Chris may even still be alive today, had he been more prepared. Chris McCandless has always been a bit of a rebel. His spiritual awakening, has led him to quit society. He
Chris McCandless was in his early 20’s, he was the kind of that guy that wanted to learn and experience life without all of the material things. He wanted to be independent from his parents and friends so Chris did something that would be insane for most of us humans but to him, it wasn’t. He went into the wild of Alaska for months, in fact, McCandless even thought he could make it out alive at the end of his journey. As a matter of fact, he was known as being a risk taker and enjoyed being out and about in the nature side of the world. Many would believe that Chris McCandless went into the wild to purposely kill himself; however, I myself believe that McCandless did not do it purposely.
Tolstoy’s ability to interweave the environment with themes of materialism and death makes The Death of Ivan Ilych stand out as a piece that criticizes societal values. In his article “Tolstoy and the Moran Instructions of Death,” Dennis Sansom focuses on the influence of fighting chaos in Ivan’s eventual acceptance of his own death. Socrates wrote, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” and Ivan’s life mirrored this until the end (qtd. in Sansom 417) .
Into The Wild portrays a man who went on a fatal unforgettable journey through the alaska wilderness. Chris McCandless was a man with great courage and the ability to live on his own made him more of a hero going on his fatal journey. Many would say he was foolish or not thinking right, but that is not the case. The case here is simply a man with courage wanting to fulfill is beliefs through his journey. One may ask what is courage.
(Krakauer 170). This includes words that make the reader sympathize with Chris, due to the situation he was in. After all, who does not fear isolation and death? Krakauer intertwines the ideas of Chris’ isolation to make the readers commiserate with him, as proven by both of the quotes.
He’d successfully kept Jan Burres and Wayne Westerberg at arm’s length, flitting out of their lives before anything was expected of him. And now he’d slipped painlessly out of Ron Franz’s life as well,” every time someone tried to become close to him, he pushed him or her away. When Ronald Franz asked to adopt him, Chris told him that they would talk about it when he returns from Alaska. Chris’ problems with his father affected his ability to form new, close relationships, and ultimately sent him to his death.
Going out into the wild all by yourself can be nerve wracking and lonely. Jon Krakauer makes Chris McCandless seemed like a noble person who took the initiative to try to go out and live into the wild. The book Into the Wild written by Jon Krakauer, is about a teenager named Chris McCandless leaving society and traveling to Alaska by himself with nothing else but a bag of rice and a small .22 caliber gun. Chris is heroic because he went to Alaska by himself without any knowledge of Alaska and didn’t know any of the dangers of Alaska. One way Krakauer make Chris seem noble is when Chris is about to enter Alaska he tells Gallien “ I’m goin’ to get on up there live off the land,go claim me a piece of the good life” (Krakauer 4).
Taking a journey into an unknown state can cause many problems, but with no map or proper equipment, more problems arise. In the book Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, Chris wanted to escape reality/society but he went into the adventure blindsided and unprepared. He did many things and didn’t think of his family and friends back home. When Chris left his whole life behind, he did some questionable things that made him a reckless and arrogant person by not being prepared, throwing his life away, and made arrogant errors that caused his death that could have been prevented.
After reading and examining the novel, the choices Chris McCandless made were due to his observation of the Romantic movement. Throughout the novel, Chris exhibits qualities of nature, manifest destiny, and idealism, therefore he is a Romantic. Chris is a Romantic because he fulfills the nature tenet. The majority of Into the Wild takes place in nature, which emphasizes the Romantic tendencies of Chris. An avid reader, much of Chris’ stringent ideology came from novels by authors such as Tolstoy and London.
I think he just wanted to pursue life in a different way. Chris was not seeing life the way anyone else was, so he decided to brush off into the wild and be free on his own. Though he did not survive, he was still a very bright, arrogant human being. Shaun Callarman states, “He had no common sense, and he had no business going into Alaska with his Romantic silliness.” Chris knew going into the wild that he did not have much survival skills, but that did not stop him from doing what he wanted to do because he did not care about society and was just completely over everything which was why he made the move to the wilderness.
I believe Shaun Callarman whom focuses on Chris McCandless is quite harsh in saying Chris had no common sense and saying that he does not admire him for his courage when Chris McCandless was a brave, wise and intelligent man. He knew exactly what he was getting into when he started his journey on going to Alaska. I think that he wanted to explore the wild and experience a different life other than the one he had. I disagree with Callarman saying McCandless was bright and arrogant at the same time. He had no business going to Alaska but that was his tactic for getting away from society.
As people age they change their mentality, views on society, and thoughts on how they want to live in the future. It is evident that Chris McCandless the protagonist from Into the Wild, went through this stage where he was stuck, tired of his parents, tired of school, grades and maybe even his friends, so he decided to just leave. According to Emerson from Nature, “The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child.” This quote means that the youth are more innocent, and are instantly open to new options. Chris challenges Emerson
We have all made mistakes, for some they are small mistakes that do not impact anyone. For others, they are of mammoth proportions and have a preponderant impact on how people think, or say about them. In the book Into the Wild it tells about the journey of Chris McCandless who died in the Alaskan wilderness. Chris McCandless was definitely one of these people who made a big mistake. People around the globe have mixed feelings about this twentieth century adventurer.
In the movie Into the Wild by Sean Penn you see Chris’s life unfold into what i think was ignorant but to some extent i get why he wanted to run so hard “He didn’t want to be the person his parents wanted him to be, he most
He made a lot of mistakes based on arrogance. I don’t admire him at all for his courage nor his noble ideas. Really, I think he was just plain crazy,” shows that Shaun believes Chris had no common sense in his doing for leaving society for the wild. I agree with Callarman’s position of thinking “ he had no common sense” and that he was “bright and Ignorant” because Chris thinks he did not have much to offer in his society, ditched all his possessions to take a trip into the Alaskan Wilderness and did not have much common sense or survival skills. Chris McCandless was very courageous for ditching all his possessions to take a trip in the wilderness.