Into The Wild Chris Mccandless Essay

Chris McCandless from the book “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer is a character who is extremely well liked by all. His smarts give him the ability to hold conversations with a variety of different people. Chris does not use his knowledge in a negative way that causes people to think that he is arrogant, it just comes out of him naturally, leaving many people impressed by the young boy. Through his character, I learned how much intelligence can truly add to one's personality. Chris is subconsciously phenomenal at speaking with new people due to his wide range of knowledge. Until recently, I was always one of those kids who didn’t understand why we were being given all of the seemingly pointless work we are given in school. I never knew why

Each one of these people seem to have a special place in their heart for him; “McCandless made an indelible impression on a number of people during the course of his hegira, most of whom spent only a few days in his company, a week or two at most” (48). We know that Chris was very smart as a kid, he got great grades in high school, and then graduated from Emory University, with honors. The surprising part is the way in which McCandless uses his knowledge. He does not hold it over other people’s heads, flaunting it, and yet it can be seen so clearly. His intelligence is not something that he consciously uses to his advantage, but instead something that allows him to comfortably converse with several different types of people, of all different ages and backgrounds. A section of McCandless’s journal, where he uses a third person perspective demonstrates an this communication ability beautifully. Alex had thought that he was traveling south, but had actually been traveling west, as he found out from a few canal officials. Although they found the lost traveler to be a bit nuts at first for insisting on knowing where he was going, eventually “a passionate conversation [broke] out amongst them, accompanied by maps and the flourish of pencils” (34). Alex subconsciously used his conversational skills in order to get directions from the officers who may have