In his book Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer explores the impossibility of attaining complete self-reliance, revealing how eternally elusive it is. Krakauer suggests to the reader that Chris McCandless is not an independent, young man capable of walking into the wild self-sufficiently, alluding to the idea that in order to reach an autonomous state, McCandless had to rely on other things to get him there. Krakauer supports the suggestion that McCandless was not independent with the notion that when confronted with opportunities, McCandless chose to take what was presented to him rather than work for what he needed. A way in which Krakauer expresses self-reliance as being impractical is when McCandless decides to “take advantage of [the bus’]