Into The Wild, By Jon Krakauer

From younger age, we have been taught to behave in a certain way in order to fit in. When we grow up, our lives get automatically filled with growing amounts of responsibilities and expectations that we need to fulfill. It is a tough world to live in; its pressure and rules can lead so many people to run away from it seeking a peace of their mind. But where should we run to? The wilderness, as being the only alternative to the human world, seems to be an ideal place to take a vacation from all of the distractions of modernity, where all human problems seem to fade and become meaningless. In this essay I am going to examine stories of two people - Chris MacCandless and Timothy Treadwell, who for their own reasons decided to leave their homes

He argues that: “He (Chris) had a need to test himself in ways, as he was fond of saying things that mattered. He possessed grand-some would say grandiose-spiritual ambitions” (Ch. 7, Krakauer). Chris had a very ambitious personality that took roots from his high self-esteem adjoining with arrogance. While playing with the fire he didn’t think he can get burned by it. Even when his ambitions were too unrealistic to achieve, he continued to follow them, relying oh his belief of his own exceptionality. Maybe if he would have been less self-centered and a little more humble to let other people help him to prepare better for his journey, he could still be alive, but unfortunately instead of thinking rationally he let his arrogance cloud his judgments and in April 1992 he walked into the Alaskan forest not prepared for what was waiting ahead of

Tragically, despite at the end of their journeys Timothy and Chris started to realize their mistakes, it was too late for them to turn back. Two days before his estimated death, Chris wrote in his journal a controversial line: “Happiness only real when shared”(Chapter 18, Krakauer). He took the journey to escape from people and his past. Whole his life he chose to be a loner, avoiding intimate attachments and disregarding other people’s feelings. This entry is an evidence that he re-evaluated himself and was ready to go back to the human community and face his fears that he was trying to hide from in the wilderness. Also, Herzog’s “Grizzly man” shows a footage that Timothy Treadwell recorded during his last days. He is standing next to a site of his death and admitting how dangerous it is to camp at the grizzly site. He was also bragging about being able to find a way to survive in such dangerous conditions, but his intonation is different than in his previous videos, I sensed fear in his voice. I had an impression that he started having his doubts about the way he sees the bears or maybe it was a fear of admitting his mistakes. We will never know what was happening in his mind at that moment, but I think he finally got to a point when wilderness forced him to see through his