Into The Wild, By Jon Krakauer

In Into the Wild, John Krakauer, shows through the character of Alex McCandless that community is not essential to happiness, through the actions he does in the book. A community is a group of people in the same area or sharing the same characteristics. And Alex McCandless proves community is not essential to happiness by introducing the relationships he makes along the way and learning more about him. Alex gets uncomfortable with human intimacy and making friendships, showing it’s not essential. “McCandless was thrilled to be on his way north, and he was relieved as well- relieved that he had again evaded the impending threat of human intimacy, of friendship, and all the messy emotional baggage that comes along with it (55).” This tells us

“He was kind of shy at first,” says Borah. “He acted like it was hard for him to be around people (63).” So, it’s not that he doesn’t have any relationships because it’s hard for him to make any, but it’s because he chooses who to have in his life and who to not. He chooses not to have his family included in his life. Ever since he was little, he always wanted to be independent and be on his own in life. Alex wanting to be independent shows that community is not essential to happiness. “He’d just roll his eyes at me, get peeved, tell me to quit trying to mother him (45).” This shows he gets upset when someone tries to boss him around or tries to play mom. And that he’d rather do things himself. “..,since he had to announce to his parents that, on principle, he would no longer give or accept gifts (20).” This shows he doesn’t take or give any gifts to other people. He does this to avoid having any emotional connections with another person. Alex McCandless has always been independent, starting as a kid. It was the kind of life he wanted to live, “Said he didn’t want to see a single person, no airplanes, no sign of