Materialism In Into The Wild By Chris Mccandless

How does a person know if they have accomplished their life goal? It is very important to everyone to achieve a goal in life. People want to feel as though they died having their goal completed. In the novel Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer, Chris McCandless has a goal of a transcendental lifestyle. The lifestyle he is striving for is similar to that of Thoreau's and Jack London’s. McCandless is a young adult who has been different from everyone else his entire life. He has never been a typical boy and has ideals different from everyone elses. Chris leaves his entire life behind him when he embarks on his journey to Alaska in order to reach transcendentalism. He travels all around the world, stopping in different cities on the way and ending at

Throughout his journey, McCandless strives for a transcendental lifestyle of rejecting materialism, society, and industrialization, but ultimately fails his attempt, making his journey to transcendentalism and his death insignificant, since he died trying to reach his goal of transcendentalism.

McCandless fails at the transcendental ideal of rejecting materialism by using materialistic items throughout his journey. When McCandless sets out on his journey, he has the idea of letting go of all materialistic items in his life for good. Early on though, when McCandless is in Bullhead city, he meets a man named Charlie, who lets him stay in a trailer. Chris writes in a letter to a friend, Jan Burres, about how nice the mobile home that he is staying in is, “It’s really quite a good deal, though, for the inside of the trailer is nice, it’s a house trailer, furnished, with some of the electric sockets working and a lot of living space” (41). McCandless is not living the ideal transcendental lifestyle when he stays in the mobile home. In order to live transcendentally, he is supposed to immerse himself completely into nature, and have no care or connections to material items. McCandless though, is explaining the nicety

McCandless meets a man name Franz when he is in Palm desert. When McCandless has no place to go, he calls Franz and he will often take McCandless wherever he needs to go. Franz and McCandless become good friends and McCandless begins to rely on Franz to be there for him; “Over the next few weeks McCandless and Franz spent a lot of time together. The younger man would regularly hitch into Salton City to do his laundry and barbeque steaks at Franz’s apartment” (51). McCandless uses Franz’s apartment to do things that he needs to be done. Without Franz, McCandless wouldn’t have anything to eat or clean clothes to wear. By using Franz’s apartment to wash his clothes and to barbeque steaks, McCandless is completely straying away from a transcendental lifestyle. He is giving in to society by becoming so close with Franz and by using his apartment to get important things done. When McCandless is in the wild, he becomes weaker and weaker. In his final days, McCandless leaves an SOS note, crying out for help; “S.O.S. I need your help. I am injured, near death, and too weak to hike out of here. I am all alone, this is NO JOKE. In the name of god, please remain to save me. I am out collecting berries close by and shall return this evening. Thank you, Chris McCandless. August?”(12). In his final days, McCandless loses sight of transcendentalism. He is