How Is Chris Mccandless Justified In Pursuit Of Individualism

“McCandless was a seeker and had an impractical fascination with the harsh side of nature” (Krakauer 85). Christopher Johnson McCandless: a scholar, and an athlete, and a naturalist, and a transcendentalist. After high school, Chris was internally conflicted which pushed him to leave his home, although, he did return to finish out college after a short period of adventuring. Once he was done with college, he indulged himself in a peregrination; after meeting several people and venturing into the wild he received mental salvation and enlightenment. Chris “Alexander Supertramp” McCandless was justified in shunning society and social norms in pursuit of individualism; Into the Woods by Henry Ticknor and “Self Reliance” by Ralph Waldo Emerson best

Chris was fully aware of these tyrannical actions his parents were dictating on his life: excel in education, finish high school, go to college, get a successful job. Chris reflects this in a letter to his sister, “‘so irrational, so oppressive, disrespectful and insulting that I finally passed my breaking point’” (qtd. in Krakauer 64). In his fragile state of mind due to repressed emotions formed by knowledge of his father’s affair, he became increasingly more contumacious. Henry Ticknor, a preacher, observes, “Chris never confronted his father with this [newfound] knowledge. He chose instead to keep it secret, buried inside, but slowly his anger began to emerge in silence and withdrawal” (Ticknor 1). Since this situation had gotten so severe, the only resolution was separation and time; by breaking the social norms and detaching himself from family, Chris preserved his individualism. Although opposing viewpoints may argue that Chris caused harm to the people he met under the ambition to find himself, one counterargument is that Chris impacted the people he met in a positive way and didn’t completely drop them after he left again. For example, Ronald Franz: Franz was so inspired by his wisdom that he stopped drinking and got a church membership, but most of all he listened to McCandless’ advice and took more risks in his