Chris Mccandless's Independence In Into The Wild

Too Much Independence Can Be Deadly Christopher McCandless was a young man whose adventurous spirit, stubborn independence, and ambition ultimately led to his demise. Jon Krakauer wrote about McCandless’ final journey in his 1996 nonfiction novel Into the Wild. Throughout the novel we come to learn all about Christopher McCandless. We learn what he was like as a child, and about the home he grew up in. We get to see how his home life impacted his decisions later in life. By learning parts of his story, we can piece together McCandless’ values. McCandless admired a few people, and obtained his values through others. One of the ideas Christopher McCandless values the most is his independence. He didn’t let anyone tell him what he could and

I believe that this sudden burst of freedom was a major deciding factor for Chris. He hadn’t felt this free in years, so he was ready to hit the open road as fast as humanly possible. However, abandoning the people who raised him, and the sister for whom he had formed a special bond with, does not seem to be a particularly easy decision for someone to make. Yet it seemed as if Chris did things on a whim. To better understand why Christopher McCandless abandoned his family, we should take into consideration how he grew up. McCandless’ parents were hard workers and were rarely seen outside of their home office. But Chris’ parents, Walt and Billie, had to work extremely long and difficult hours. Money was tight. Having to live off money through self-employment is already a difficult task. But in addition to this, Walt’s separation from his first wife left him supporting not one, but two completely different families. However, even when they started to gain a larger abundance of money, life was still stressful. Walt and Billie worked even harder to keep their business afloat. McCandless’ parents soon became stressed, emotional, and tightly wound. These emotions would occasionally lead to verbal disputes,

He isolated himself from everybody that truly cared about him, and he even went so far as to turn his back on society. Chris and I may both value our independence, except we chose to go about these beliefs in drastically different ways. I chose to value my interpersonal connections instead of driving them away. I found that being close to somebody and discovering different views of the world can allow you to self-reflect without having to be on your own. McCandless drove away human connection and decided he needed to do this on his own. As aforementioned, Chris didn’t always have the best relationship with his father. They were both stubborn, and Chris found Walt to be too controlling. Reflecting on his childhood allows the readers of Into the WIld to slightly sympathize with Chris. Nevertheless, Chris’ actions still make him out to be an imbecile. Walt may have been controlling, but simply talking to him could have potentially led to a solution. I value my independence as much as any other teenager does, but I still wouldn't starve myself in the wild to gain that freedom. Chris’ values, especially that of independence, led him down the path to Alaska. It’s because of these values that he ends up dead in an abandoned bus. Into the Wild tells the story of Chris McCandless as it truly happened. Christopher McCandless was a man whose high morals, strong values, stubborn spirit, and independence,