Summary Of Into The Wild By Jon Krakauer

This book starts with the founding of Christopher McCandless’s body by a bunch of Alaskan hunters in a bus. The law enforcement then comes to remove his body. Jon Krakauer writes about this while writing for “Outside Magazine” and become very curious about this story. To find out more Krakauer pays a visit to a man named Wayne Westerberg, who says that he knew Christopher McCandless as “Alex McCandless” and he then gives a sketch of the young man’s character while in Carthage Wisconsin. He states that he used McCandless from time to time on his grain elevator and from his memories views him as participating, smart, and determined. Details from McCandless’s snug, upper-middle-class family and his dislike of materialism helps Krakauer understand

This trip takes 5 months. During this, Chris’s family begins work on his disappearance. After his canoe trip McCandless works and lives in Bullhead town, Arizona. An elderly man named Charlie lets him stay with him, until Chris leaves and meets Jan Buress and her ex in CA. He engages within the social lifetime of Buress’s drifters’ camp however leaves hurriedly, assuming to begin his ascent towards Alaska. Jon gets a letter from a man named Ronald Franz, and he tells the author about how he had made a father-son relationship with Chris. The author then goes to see Westerberg once more and reconstructs McCandless’s last month in Carthage by speaking with Westerberg’s girlfriend and mother. Krakauer discovers information about the troubled relationship Chris had with his father and relates to hm. In late Apr., 1992, Chris’s friends received postcards from Chris telling them that he was going into the wild, and that he might never come back. The author’s further investigations are driven by his realization that a lot of those who read his original article, stated that Chris was an incompetent

He evaluates all of them and makes the connection that McCandless has the most in common with Everett Ruess. Back in Alaska at the bus, state troopers arrange to identify McCandless’s body. Jim Gallien reads of the finding of the body and talks to the police, sets off a number of events that result in Chris’s body being identified. Krakauer next visits with McCandless’s family, starting together with his father, Walt McCandless, and his mother, Billie McCandless. Billie shows Krakauer pictures of Christopher’s childhood and Walt describes the sorrow his son has caused the family. Krakauer’s investigation then picks up a replacement subject: McCandless’s frustration together with his family. once McCandless graduated from highschool, he went on a visit to CA and discovered that his father had been a spouse. Krakauer theorizes that McCandless’s anger at this long-kept family secret offers some motivation for his need to go away his life behind. Krakauer then dedicates 2 chapters to his own ascent of the Devils Thumb. These parallel the plot of McCandless’s