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Into The Wild By Jon Krakauer: Synthesis Essay

1193 Words5 Pages

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, displays a true story about a young man named Christopher McCandless, who left his whole life behind to experience a journey hitchhiking across the country, until he settles on a plan on going to Alaska. Christopher settled to go to Alaska, north of Mountain McKinley to experience the extremes of living in the wilderness with little to nothing of supplies. During Christopher time period at Emory University, he expresses the inspiration he gains from reading books and the understanding of the different idealistic thoughts from Tolstoy, Stegner, Thoreau, Jack London, and Pasternak. That influenced his mindset on wanting to experience the love for nature in a perspective of personal growth and mental development …show more content…

Christopher and other explorers that are included in the book needed to experience the extremes of life and the extremes of the wild for their own personal reason. Jon Krakauer compared Rosselini, Waterman, McCunn, and Reuss to explain the physiological reasoning why Christoper was not the only explorer who maintained this mindset on wanting to leave society for the love of nature and their beliefs. These explorers and Christopher reverted to a primitive existence to express their beliefs and ultimate freedom of what they portrayed the world should be. Becoming connected to nature in a different aspect than living in a society that depends on materialistic items to experience happiness. For example, “The beauty of this country is becoming part of me. I feel more detached from life and somehow gentler...[...] but no one who really understands why I am here or what I do. I don’t know of anyone, though, who would have more than a partial understanding; I have gone too far alone (91).” Out of the explorers named in the book Christopher and Everett Reuss shared a comparison on the connection they wanted with nature and the solitude they felt when they were …show more content…

That started the summer he graduated from high school. His parents explained, “He could be generous and caring to a fault, but he had a darker side as well, characterized by monomania, impatience, and unwavering self-absorption, qualities that seemed to intensify through his college years (120).” The event that created Christopher to become more isolated was the father keeping a secret of having another family. After finding out about his father secret family Christopher started containing a dark side that wanted no part of human contact. He wanted ultimate freedom from individuals and society that led him not wanting to have any long-term intimacy relationships with the individuals he met throughout his journey. Even though he started to enjoy the company of some individuals, he was selfish to not let himself develop those relationships. Until he took a turning point before he was about to die of starvation. He realizes that he wanted human connection and remember Wayne Westerberg's and wrote his last letter to him rather than his father. He admires Wayne when he took him under his wing and gave Christopher a job. As well as the last remark he made about Tolstoy reading of family happiness. That certain happiness is to live with others that you enjoy being around with. Christopher during his last days wanted to reconnect with society and make the connections he once had

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