Character Analysis: Into The Wild By Jon Krakauer

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Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer is a nonfiction story of Chris McCandless, a young graduate who was found dead in the Alaskan wilderness in September 1992. This narrative follows young Chris McCandless to his journey from the days before he started his journey, all the way to his last journal entries. Many believe Chris was not mentally healthy and falled under the “bush-casualty” stereotype. Chris does fall under some of the categories of the bush-casualty but does not completely fall under the category. He did die from the romantic view of the wilderness but did survive a considerate amount of time in the wilderness without having any past experience. Chris was a very intelligent person and survived too long in the wild to be considered insane. The bush-casualty stereotype is the romantic view of the wilderness and having risky behavior. Chris did show some aspects of this nature but survived much longer than the rest of the people compared to him. Chris also came from a very well educated background which also differed him from the rest of the people compared to him. “He wasn 't incompetent-he wouldn 't have lasted 113 days if he were. And he wasn 't a nutcase, he wasn 't a sociopath, he wasn 't an outcast. McCandless was something else-although precisely what is hard to say. A pilgrim, perhaps."(Kraukaur 85). Jon Krakauer believed this as well. He connected with Chris and knew he didn’t do it because he was a psychopath, he knew somewhat the situation he was putting