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Examples Of Transcendentalism In Into The Wild

1309 Words6 Pages

Jacob Tavarez
Mrs. Lamorgese
English II Honors
March 9, 2023
The Fallacy of Chris Mccandless
Some people make decisions for themselves, not considering the consequences it will have on themselves and the ones around them. In the film Into the Wild directed by Sean Penn, a young man named Chris McCandless runs away from his home, along with the expectations of his parents, to live his life the way he wants to, by traveling to Alaska. In doing so he leaves behind people who care and depend on him. Many ideas of Transcendentalism are seen mainly through Chris, as he feels society is a poison that must be escaped, and he believes that some laws may be broken if they are unjust. These views are similar to the ones seen in “Civil Disobedience” and …show more content…

Throughout the movie, monologues are given from Carine, Chris’s sister, documenting the time Chris has been gone and the effect it has had on her and the family. These voiceovers are incredibly important as they give the viewer a look into Carine and her parents' minds. From these, one can infer that Carine understands why Chris is doing what he is doing, but it doesn't stop her from feeling depressed about it. In fact, one almost sees Carine become more upset as the movie goes on. She doesn't seem to understand why Chris wouldn’t send letters or make a call back home when the truth of the matter is that contacting his family was a thought that rarely crossed his mind. Chris was solely focused on making it to Alaska, caring about the relationships he made, but not being unable to throw them away. We see this again in the character of Tracy. Chris almost goes out of his way to make a personal connection with Tracy, just before leaving again. A consequence of Chris’s hyperfocus on his wants and goals is that he misses the good that is around him, which is finally seen in the character of Ron Franz. Both Franz and Chris learned a lot from each other throughout the time they spent together. Chris learned leatherworking and some of the man's philosophies, while Franz adopted more of a Transcendentalist mindset. This can be seen in a quote from Franz saying “...but …show more content…

Chris took a very uncivilized approach to his escape from reality. While he did donate a large sum of his savings to charity, he also crashes a car in the desert, abandons it, and proceeds to burn all the money he had on him, which is in fact a crime. On top of this, he also didn't tell anyone of his departure and just fled his past life. This shows extreme cowardice on his part, as he was too afraid to face anyone before leaving, and instead just wants to escape all of his issues. Adopting a new name is another example of this idea. While it may seem that he just did this so authorities couldn't track him down, truthfully it was just to separate himself from his old life. Throughout Chris’s journey, he commits multiple crimes that did not necessarily need to be committed. Chris illegally takes a canoe down the Colorado river, he illegally crosses the border into Mexico, and he would ride on trains without permission. All of these are examples of how he would use what was around him to help reach his goal, whether it was legal or not. He could have found other ways to get to his destination but his own time is more important than the law so he did what made his life easier. While one could argue that these were an example of civil disobedience since he wasn't harming anyone, the act of taking a canoe down the river without training,

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Chris wanted to live his life and find who he really is. He wasn’t becoming who he wanted to be. He was super smart, athletic, and went to a good college. His family had a lot of money and he did not care for money at all. He wanted his own life.

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I think he just saw it has an opening and once he finally understood and saw the opening he used that as a justifiable persecution on leaving. Chris father kinda manipulated in a way since he wanted Chris to be a successful student and person, but inside he was was an abusive father, so that’s quite justified. I believe and understand another reason why he isolated himself was that he wanted to find himself and figure out what could make him happy. I think it was a time and opportunity to go out and figure out who he is as a person, and he figured that he was more happier in the wild and in the open nature with no

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Into The Wild was a tremendous story which Shaun Callarman did not have many positive things to say about Chris McCandless, the main character. He went on this adventure to find out what life is all about in his own eyes. He wanted to see how different living in the wild really was compared to society because he was not satisfied with his living arrangements and household. Shaun’s quote says that he thinks “Chris McCandless was bright and ignorant at the same time. He had no common sense, and he had no business going into Alaska with his Romantic silliness.

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P.198 His sister carine points out “Chris would never, ever, intentionally burn down a forest, not even to save his life.” When Chris got lost he could have set the forest on fire so he could be found, but as his sister said he would have never have hurt the forest. Chris made a huge impact on the lives of others, he made friends with people on his way to Alaska. He made a huge impact on Ron Franz, Ron had a son who died, and he viewed Chris like a son and asked to adopt Chris.

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He then proceeded to change his name, donate all of his savings to charity and abandon his car. Chris really was nothing short of crazy. The book Into The Wild, by Jon Krakauer tells the story of how Chris completely abandons regular life and goes off the grid. Chris possessed a streak of stubborn idealism that did not mesh readily with modern existence. On page 2 in the author's note Krakauer states, ¨Captivated by the writing of Leo Tolstoy, McCandles particularly admired how the great novelist had forsaken a life of wealth and privilege to wander among the destitute.¨

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He wanted full disconnect from the world, fully he didn't want no contact with anyone. “The fact that Chris never bothered to let his family, specifically his parents, know where he was when he was gone for two years” (Jessica Robbins, 2012) she says she doesn't believe he did it on purpose but i feel like he did, the fact he found the truth about his parents is when he felt like his parents now feel about having no clue to where he may be i think he wanted to make his parents feel some of the pain he's felt so he hides himself from the very start. For instance, in the movie you

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Although I understand why he did what he did, I still think, objectively, that he did a selfish thing. We find out Chris dies pretty early on in the book. Only after we know that he dies, do we learn more of his backstory. He was intelligent and his family was fairly wealthy.

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I think he just wanted to pursue life in a different way. Chris was not seeing life the way anyone else was, so he decided to brush off into the wild and be free on his own. Though he did not survive, he was still a very bright, arrogant human being. Shaun Callarman states, “He had no common sense, and he had no business going into Alaska with his Romantic silliness.” Chris knew going into the wild that he did not have much survival skills, but that did not stop him from doing what he wanted to do because he did not care about society and was just completely over everything which was why he made the move to the wilderness.

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He wanted to ditch his old life so maybe he was trying to cut off ties to the world as well. If you take that the wrong way his death may seem like suicide suddenly, but from many other papers that is not implied. The majority think that it was just an unfortunate few events that led to his death. If Chris would have taken a few more resources his life possibly would have lasted longer than it did, and using his story wrote an inspiration book. But he died, so there’s no reason to play the game of “what-if” because it could go an infinite number of ways.

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He’d successfully kept Jan Burres and Wayne Westerberg at arm’s length, flitting out of their lives before anything was expected of him. And now he’d slipped painlessly out of Ron Franz’s life as well,” every time someone tried to become close to him, he pushed him or her away. When Ronald Franz asked to adopt him, Chris told him that they would talk about it when he returns from Alaska. Chris’ problems with his father affected his ability to form new, close relationships, and ultimately sent him to his death.

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Chris seemed to become someone who was untrusting of others. I think this was caused by his parents. Chris never really saw eye to eye with his parents especially his father and after Chris learned of his father’s past double life his relationship with his parents had begun to deteriorate. A quote from his mother said “‘He seemed mad at us more often, and he became more withdrawn-no, that’s not the right word. Chris wasn’t ever withdrawn.

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