Essay On Transcendentalism In Into The Wild

In the 19th and 20th century transcendentalism was a new and exciting topic that caused tremendous controversy. In the novel Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, Chris McCandless was a man with a very unique character. In more detailed words Chris McCandless was a transcendentalist. His actions and moods played a big part in his life, from beginning to end. He was a transcendentalist because of his self-reliance, confidence and non-conformity. Even some people thought that McCandless was mentally unstable that was not the case. To begin with, Chris McCandless’ self-reliance embodies him because of his need to live off nature. On his journey into the wild, Chris relied on himself and nature to survive. He was disciplined when it came to what he needed, and didn’t have to communicate with others all the time. In the

McCandless is very opinionated, and doesn’t listen to other people’s ideas if it stood in the way of his own. When others would lecture him on never calling his parents he would brush it off like a speck of dust on his shoulder. In Krakauer’s book he writes, “But Chris, with his idiosyncratic logic, came up with an elegant solution to his dilemma: He simply got rid of the map. In his own mind, if nowhere else, the terra would thereby remain incognita” (Krakauer 174). McCandless believed that his mind was better than a map and that he could trust his instinct. Chris’s confidence told him that his opinion was better than any opinion out there, and that he could live his life without others useless ideas. McCandless was very confident in his idea, like he should be with the grades that he got in college. Emerson writes, “Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of our own mind” (Emerson 4). Opinions are very important because that’s what makes a human different. The key to transcendentalism is confidence in a person’s own beliefs, but one more could be