Is Chris McCandless a Transcendentalist? What is transcendentalism? It is a very fancy word for a very simple idea. Transcendentalism is a philosophy where a person’s reality is built off intuition instead of logic. Transcendentalists live their lives with as few materialistic items as possible and block out what society describes as acceptable for what a human should do with their life. Their intuitive knowledge “Transcends” or goes beyond their five senses. Transcendentalists’ dive into art and nature in order to figure out their purpose on Earth. The book, Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, is about a young man named Chris McCandless who is fed up with his rich life style, so he decides to set out on an adventure. When McCandless leaves home, he changes his name, burns all the money he has, and sets out for a new life. He travels all over the country working different types of jobs to make enough money for himself. McCandless had one big goal in his life, and it was to …show more content…
McCandless would do anything to figure out what the meaning of life was. “[He] wanted excitement and danger, and the chance to sacrifice [himself] for [his] love” (15) in order to know he was living his life. McCandless was the kind of person that would do something that could potentially kill him if he knew it could have a great outcome if nothing went wrong. McCandless wanted to experience life for all it had to offer. McCandless always did what he felt was right for him at the time, and he was the person to “[live] out his beliefs” (67) and would stop at nothing to do so. This is one characteristic of McCandless that made him a transcendentalist. He made his decisions based on his own intuition. He thought for himself and never questioned what he believed was the right thing to do. McCandless was a traveler of not only the wilderness, but of his own soul. He did this to find