Chris was definitely a misguided idealist if anything. He had this wild fantasy in his head that everything would fall “in place” if he went out and spent some time in the wild. Despite being so intelligent, Krakauer ended up getting brainwashed by the ideals of Jack London, Leo Tolstoy, and Henry David Thoreau.
Jack London mesmerized Chris McCandless with the way he portrayed life in both the Yukon and Alaska; on page forty-four, it was said that McCandless “was so enthralled by these tales, however, that he seemed to forget that they were works of fiction, constructions of the imagination that had more to do with London’s romantic sensibilities than with the actualities of life in the subarctic wilderness.”
Along with London, Chris was fascinated by Tolstoy, who “had forsaken a life of wealth and privileges to wander among the destitute.” Tolstoy lived a life which Chris yearned to have, thus considering Leo as his mentor. In order to seek “peril, adversity, and Tolstoyan renunciation,” Chris was convinced he would have to travel to Alaska (Author’s Note). In chapter four, Chris made the decision to burn all of his one hundred twenty-three dollars due to Leo Tolstoy’s influences. He thought
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Both the main character and author were not comfortable with the idea of being surrounded by society, thus why Chris admired Thoreau so much. Although Thoreau primarily lived in the wild “primarily to ponder nature or the world at large,” McCandless aimed to “explore the inner country of his own soul”. After spending some time, however, Chris realized something that was already obvious to Henry: one cannot simply live in the wild without developing “a strong emotional bond with, that land and all it holds” (Krakauer 183). For someone who originally aimed to discover his “true self”, Chris was now also in awe of the nature which surrounded