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Idealism In Into The Wild

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Christopher McCandless was a man that lived a very short but eventful and extraordinary life that had a lot of meaning, so much so that a novel was made to tell his life story. When the author, Jon Krakauer, wrote the story of Christopher McCandless in “Into the Wild” he developed a lot of themes throughout the novel that had significant impact to the story, as those themes affected the decisions and outcomes in McCandless’s life. Although the novel may have had many themes when reading throughout the story two apparent themes seem to affect almost every aspect of McCandless’s life story. These two themes are arrogance and idealism as they are developed thoroughly throughout the story and seem to be related as they interconnect with each other …show more content…

As it could be seen in the novel, one of the characters Christopher meets along his journey is Gallien. This character offers to help Christopher (AKA Alex), but he rejects his offer. “Gallien offered to drive Alex all the way to Anchorage, buy him decent gear, and then drive him back to wherever he waned to go. “No, thanks anyway,” Alex replied, “I’ll be fine with what I’ve got.” (Krakauer, 7). 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.” McCandless is, finally, just a pale 20th-century burlesque of London’s protagonist, who freezes because he ignores advice and commits big time hubris) .... His ignorance, which could have been cured by a USGS quadrant and a Boy Scout manual, is what killed him.” (Krakauer, 51). This added quote supports the claim that because of the underlying theme of McCandless’s arrogance it caused him to go into the Alaskan wilderness ill-equipped and unprepared which eventually led to his untimely

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It was clear that McCandless was ill-prepared for many of the situations that he was presented with throughout his adventure to Alaska. McCandless was very passionate about pursuing his dreams to live off the land. Although, if he wanted to survive long enough to enjoy living in one of the most harshest environments on earth, it would have only made sense that he carefully planned out every detail of his trip to prevent him from dying. However on the contrary, it was as if he had no plans or strategies to prevent this from happening. The ultimate sacrifice McCandless paid from unpreparedness was death.

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In the beginning of chapter 8, Krakauer blatantly states all these strangers’ opinions about McCandless’s death to the reader. These honest and blunt opinions that were stated against McCandless causes one to realize that McCandless’s peril was one hundred percent absurd and puerile. After reading others opinions on his death, it made me resent McCandless even more than I did. “Personally I see nothing positive at all about Chris McCandless’s lifestyle or wilderness doctrine.” (page 71) another opinion states, “McCandless had already gone over the edge and just happened to hit bottom in Alaska.”

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Jon Krakauer makes various claims about how Chris McCandless is a very noble person. Krakauer’s bias is throughout the book Into the Wild. The book is about Chris McCandless and his adventures across America. The book is his life story covering how he died and how he came to the point of his death. Krakauer uses his bias and various claims to show what type of person Chris really was and to show some of how Chris thought about the world and government.

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In the novel, Into the Wild, author Jon Krakauer presents the journey and life story of Christopher McCandless, a twenty-two-year-old adventurer from Annandale, Virginia. Chris McCandless, also known by the alias Alexander Supertramp, abandoned his former life in the suburbs of Virginia and traveled into the Alaskan wilderness in an attempt to escape the materialistic ideals of society. After one hundred and thirteen days in the wilderness, McCandless passes away due to starvation. Along with his decomposing body, cryptic messages from his diary are found indicating that he was gradually perishing. Throughout the novel, Krakauer admits to seeing himself in McCandless’ actions.

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In Krakauer’s non-fiction novel Into The Wild, he tells the story of a young man named Chris McCandless and his crazy adventures all over North America. Chirs McCandless was a 22-year-old, who had just graduated from Emory University and decided to go off on this journey. Throughout the novel, Krakauer follows the trail that took, he meets with many different people who had interacted with McCandless and they tell him their stories. Krakauer also tells the stories of four other men who set out on similar adventures. The men who stuck out to me were Gene Rosellini and Evertt Ruess, two men with similar plans to those of McCandless.

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Even though Christopher McCandless was only an adventurous young man trying to chase his dreams, that still does not account for all the careless mistakes he made in the process. His incompetence did not allow him to last even a mere six months in the destination in which he had desired to live in. His inability to take one’s advice left him with no clue as to what to do next. It was like he was living in the dark. Also, his unpreparedness reached its magnitude when he died of starvation in 1992.

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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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Jon Krakauer has a high amount of respect for Christopher J. McCandless; not only because they have many similarities, but because McCandless searched deep for the meaning of life and did as he pleased. In the book, “Into The Wild,” Krakauer not only tells the story of McCandless, but also of his own life, and how he has been shaped into his own. Krakauer had a deep love for the wild, just as Chris did. Though, the two did not do the same things, they both pursued their passions which made it easier for Krakauer to relate to Chris. Once climbing a mountain, Krakauer had ran into trouble, just as Chris did on his journey.

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However, McCandless’ actions were not exactly out of the ordinary. There are various souls who also desire to backpack across a country and their escapades might even mirror the actions of McCandless. It is a given that although McCandless wasn’t cautious about going into the Alaskan wilderness, he was not the only person on Earth to take on similar terrains. In fact, Jon Krakauer, author of “Into the WIld”, mentions that a white writer known as Nick Jans claims to have “run into several McCandless types out in the country” (71). Therefore; McCandless’ endeavor was just another to add into the list of fatal attempts to take on nature.

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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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568 Words | 3 Pages

So many people tried to help McCandless, but those were the same people he wanted to leave behind. One of them, Gallien recognized that McCandless lacked the basic necessities to survive in the Alaskan Bush, “he has no food except for a ten pound bag of rice, his hiking boots are not waterproof, and his rifle is too small for the large game he will have to kill in order to survive…” Gallien tried to talk McCandless out of an unsafe, unmarked route, but McCandless was too hot headed and ignorant to take that into consideration. Another man, who went by Stucky bought rice for McCandless and told him he's too early, that there was too much snow out and nothing is growing yet. But McCandless shrugged him off and went anyway. “Stucky points out, ‘Alex you're too early.

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401 Words | 2 Pages

Throughout Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer gives his own in-depth look of how he feels about the young Chris McCandless. While doing so, he shows the opinions and stereotypes Chris has gained before and after he was in the wild landscapes of Alaska. It conveys how Krakauer feels toward this boy’s journey. Although Krakauer tries to maintain neutrality in analyzing the young Chris McCandless’ life and death, his own views become evident in the Author’s Note.

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806 Words | 4 Pages

Into the Wild tells the story of Chris McCandless, a young man who embarked on an adventure across the U.S. Chris lived for adventure, and sadly met his demise in the Alaskan wilderness. Chris’ death brought about a large debate as to whether Chris was insane or simply idealistic. Krakauer wrote Into the Wild to prove Chris’ sanity and soundly completes that task by using rhetorical devices to persuade his audience. Throughout the book, Krakauer uses ethos to develop Chris’ credibility by providing examples of people who are similar to him. For example, Krakauer provides multiple examples of people who were very similar to Chris, such as Everett Ruess.

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915 Words | 4 Pages

However, Jon Krakauer proves his argument that McCandless was not arrogant, foolish, antisocial, or crazy by giving examples of other young men who were similar to McCandless to show that his journey wasn’t unprecedented. He also proves that McCandless wasn’t antisocial because he developed personal relationships with Ronald Franz, Wayne Westerberg, and Jan Burres in such a short amount of time and explaining the many times that McCandless respected the Alaskan Bush. Krakauer admits that McCandless may have suffered from hubris; he was still a victim of circumstances. Krakauer proves that McCandless had an intrinsic motivation to discover and that he wasn’t alone because Krakauer too ventured into the Alaskan Bush when he was younger. The Alaskan Bush is a very difficult place to survive if one isn’t prepared for many challenges such as hunting for food or staying warm in the frost ridden

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Christopher also knew that his journey could be dangerous and that he could be stepping on the edge of death. Christopher writes this letter to Wayne Westerberg the grain elevator operator who becomes McCandless friend, “If this adventure proves fatal and you don’t ever hear from me again, I want you to know you’re a great man. I now walk into the wild” (Krakauer 69). After reading or listening to the story, many

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