Transcendentalist Billie and Walt McCandless couldn’t believe the news, their son Chris McCandless, whom they haven’t seen for 2 years turned up dead in the Alaska Wilderness. Chris McCandless left his comfortable life to seek a new life for himself, to reinvent himself. McCandless’s principles are identical to those of transcendentalist, whose principles include the rejection of society, institution, and searching for a purpose through nature. McCandless can be best characterized as a transcendentalist through his nonconformist actions, belief of self reliance, and his respect for nature. By the age of 20, McCandless had left most of his worldly belongings behind and set off into the wild. He rejects society and is not willing to conform …show more content…
It was not until he set off on his Alaskan odyssey that we see the intensity of his independence. Many identical ideals can be seen from McCandless and Emerson’s essay, Self Reliance, Emerson goes as far as calling society “a conspiracy against the manhood of everyone of its members”(Emerson, Self Reliance). This quote underlines one of many beliefs McCandless took to heart, he would not let allow himself to become a slave to society. Chris made it clear he didn’t want to be found, he pushed his sister away, Carine, whom he was quite close. Chris always pushed himself academically and athletically, he excelled in almost everything he did. He later pushed himself to be completely self reliant, he states, “it was important to see how independent he could be” (Krakauer 125). This quote illustrates McCandless’s need to test his limits, both physically and mentally. Chris does everything in his power to be self reliant, this is shown when he decides to leave people in his life that threaten to become too important to him, and thus hindering his intentions to become only reliant on himself. Chris states, “...relieved that he again evaded the impending threat to human intimacy, of friendship, and all the messy emotional baggage that comes with it” (Krakauer 55). He saw this as an obstacle that would prevent him from living his dream of being completely self reliant. Chris’s life