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Christopher Mccandless In Into The Wild, By Jon Krakauer

1092 Words5 Pages

Hunter Roll
Professor Swan
ENGL 153
27 February 2023
Connection Narrative
In Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, the main character Christopher McCandless is viewed by most as being a young man who wishes to break free from the chains and rules of society by escaping to the great and wonderfully vast outdoors. The protagonist felt that his best option was to leave our man-made world behind and head out into the wilderness with nothing but a couple of books, some rice, and a small rifle. Some may see his actions and desires as brave and romantic. However, this essay will argue the opposite and provide some personal experiences along the way. His naivete to the perils that nature holds eventually leads poor McCandless to his unfortunate downfall. McCandless …show more content…

The wild is no place for human-created rules or for people who have a conscious. The wilderness was made for and by animals, ruthless beings that embrace the kill-or-be-killed mentality, it was not designed for poor-romantic Christopher McCandless. Rather than jumping the gun, and impulsively running into the wilderness with little to no plan or equipment, McCandless should have taken the time to learn the skills required to survive in the wild. Doing so could have ultimately saved his life and made his stay in nature much more manageable and enjoyable. In the beginning, McCandless was eager to go: “He was elated to be there. Inside the bus, on a sheet of weathered plywood spanning a broken window, McCandless scrawled an exultant declaration of independence: two years he walks the earth. no phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes. ultimate freedom. an extremist” (Krakauer pg. 121). What he did not account for was that the thing he was trying to escape …show more content…

As a teenager in high school, I took many trips into the vast outdoors over my summers. One of my favorite spots to travel to for a week at a time was The Boundry Waters. I have visited on three separate occasions with each one offering me a brand new set of obstacles to tackle. The Boundry Waters lie on the border between the U.S. and Canada. The area is filled with lakes, forests, and rivers all interconnected with small land bridges called portages. Companies called Outfitters rent out their survival and outdoor equipment so that adventure seekers can take reliable gear out into the boundary waters. Outfitters also usually handle transportation to and from the edge of The Boundry Waters. They tend to drop you off on a Monday and pick you up tens of miles away from where they dropped you off a week later. Your goal is to canoe, survive, and portage your way to the extraction location. There is no help, there are no motor vehicles, there is no civilization, and you truly are all by yourself. In addition, there are countless amounts of wild animals including bears, moose, fish, wolves, otters, etc. Animals who do not have a moral compass or humane rules they must follow, and who adopt the aforementioned kill-or-be-killed mentality. From first-hand experience, encountering these creatures in their habitat is very exciting and these animals often give a false persona of being cuddly, cute, or domicile. But

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Going out into the wild all by yourself can be nerve wracking and lonely. Jon Krakauer makes Chris McCandless seemed like a noble person who took the initiative to try to go out and live into the wild. The book Into the Wild written by Jon Krakauer, is about a teenager named Chris McCandless leaving society and traveling to Alaska by himself with nothing else but a bag of rice and a small .22 caliber gun. Chris is heroic because he went to Alaska by himself without any knowledge of Alaska and didn’t know any of the dangers of Alaska. One way Krakauer make Chris seem noble is when Chris is about to enter Alaska he tells Gallien “ I’m goin’ to get on up there live off the land,go claim me a piece of the good life” (Krakauer 4).

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‘I’ll climb a tree’ is all he said. He had an answer for everything I threw at him” (Krakauer 6). McCandless would not let anyone change his ideals even though they propose reasonable opinions which puts him in all kinds of trouble, including his death, throughout his journey. If McCandless weren’t so protective and close-minded of his ideals and beliefs, he would’ve made less mistakes and his death would’ve been easily

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McCandless was not street smart or smart enough to survive in the wild. He had very little knowledge on how to do so, he had a book with him to see what type of plants he was able to eat, and the ones he was not able to eat. McCandless should have at least got more knowledge about the wild and tried to practice some basic skills, before he went out into the wild. Having basic skills on how to survive in the wild would make me think differently about McCandless. There were various things McCandless could have done that would’ve changed his fate significantly.

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McCandless was happier living a life with complete independence, then a life fenced by people. He was incredibly ambitious and followed his heart. He did not relish restraints or rules set out in front of him, but instead he did what he wanted to do. He ventured out into the wild and fell in love with nature; a tragic story for a tragic hero. As Chris breathed his last breath, he was finally able to find his inner happiness.

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May people in this world are trying to pursuit their dreams, One person's particular is Christopher McCandless who decided to live out in the wilderness. He was a young man who was will educated and graduated from college in 1990’s. In the article “ Death of an Innocent ” By Jon Krakauer tells us about his journey and how he tried to serviced out in the wilderness. The movie “Into the wild” it explains his hole life style and how he decided to go out into the wilderness. I believe McCandless is a fool because he worked to hard to get to here he was at in life just to go out into the wilderness.

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Into the Wild, written by Jon Krakauer, is a non-fiction book based on the real-life story of Christopher McCandless, a young man who leaves his comfortable life behind to live in the wilderness of Alaska. The book is a fascinating exploration of McCandless's motivations and the reasons behind his decision to abandon society and embrace the wilderness. One of the key themes in the book is the tension between the desire for freedom and the need for human connection. Throughout the book, Krakauer explores how McCandless's desire for freedom and independence led him to reject the traditional trappings of society, including money, possessions, and even his own name.

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Many criticizers of Chris McCandless believe that he was so naive and ill-prepared for his adventure to Alaska that it was what ended up costing him his life in the end. Some would disagree with that opinion and say he was courageous and admired that he followed his dreams and ambitions. In the author’s note of “Into The Wild” Jon Krakauer states, “Some readers admired the boy immensely for his courage and noble ideals; others fulminated that he was a reckless idiot, a wacko, a narcissist who perished out of arrogance and stupidity” (Authors Note). In my opinion, McCandless was prepared for this adventure, knew what risks he was going to face, and therefore wasn’t naive about his journey.

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Christopher McCandless, the protagonist of the novel and film Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer, is not your average guy. Driven by his minimalist ideals and hate for society, he challenged the status quo and embarked on a journey that eventually lead to his unforeseen demise. A tragic hero, defined by esteemed writer, Arthur Miller, is a literary character who makes an error of judgment or has a fatal flaw that, combined with fate and external forces, brings on tragedy. Christopher McCandless fulfills the role of Miller’s tragic hero due to the fact that his tragic flaw of minimalism and aversion towards society had lead him to his death.

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Into the American Wild In Jon Krakauer’s novel, Into the Wild, a young man leaves everything he possess behind to venture across America and live off the land. Jon Krakauer investigates the tragically short life of Chris McCandless’s life and his motives for abandoning the life laid out for him. The more in depth Krakaeur delves into McCandless’s life and those alike Mccandless, the more attention to the American Wilderness there seems to be. Krakauer inscribes the attraction of the American Wilderness through recounting Mccandless’s travels and tales similar to McCandless’s including his own.

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When McCandless returned home his parents expressed their fears about his dangerous, daunting trips. Although he knew the dangerous situations he was putting himself through, he didn’t want to back down to his parents, “he wanted to prove to himself that he could make it on his own, without anybody else’s help” (178). He was tired of being babied by his parents, he wanted to show them that he was no longer a boy, but a man. McCandless’ refusal of his parent’s loving advice therefore proves that he wished to be his own person, stating the actions of his trip into the wild as being sane, and a product of independence.

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This goes on to show how arrogant and stubborn McCandless was to believe that he could survive with the bare minimum only because he convinced himself he could do it. Moreover, a writer named Nick Jans adds, “Same story: idealistic, energetic young guys who overestimated themselves, underestimated the country, and ended up in trouble. McCandless was hardly unique; there’s quite a few of these guys hanging around the state, so much alike that they’re almost a collective cliche. The only difference is that McCandless ended up dead, with the story of his dumbassedness splashed across the media.... (Jack London got it right in “To Build a Fire.”

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Krakauer describes McCandless as "an extremely intense young man... (with) a streak of stubborn idealism that did not mesh readily with modern existence". When he set off on his journey, "he entertained no illusions... peril, adversity, and Tolstoyan renunciation were precisely what he was

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This concludes that McCandless wants to do something on his own for once, and he wants to prove to everyone that he doesn’t need help to survive. He wants to be an independent person experiencing the wild; this demonstrates that he was very brave because people usually have the desire to do something they really want, but here McCandless is actually attempting to do something alone. People usually fear of living alone without civilization, but it was very noble of him to do such a thing because sometimes people are too afraid of doing things alone or to actually achieve their real dreams. He is a very brave person because in this world, people are standing in the streets begging for money, whereas McCandless went out of his own way to figure out what to do and how to handle the situation without being a bother to anyone. Although this may be true, some may argue that he was a reckless fool.

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In addition, in a journal entry, McCandless writes, “It is the experiences, the memories, the great triumphant joy of living to the fullest extent in which real meaning is found. God it’s great to be alive! Thank you. Thank you” (Krakauer 37). This excerpt shows that McCandless sincerely is at peace with himself and the world because of where his ideals have taken him.

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What really drove Chris McCandless into the wild? I believe the top three of the countless reasons that drove McCandless into the wild was the emotional damage from his parents, rebellion of the youth & risk taking tendencies, and his hubris and detestation against authority and/or someone telling him what to do. Some may believe that Chris McCandless went into the wild because of his literary heroes Leo Tolstoy, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau , and Jack London but the real reason he left everything was because of those reasons. In this essay I will elaborate on why I believe those are the reasons that drove McCandless into the wild.

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