Summary Of Into The Wild, By Jon Krakauer

Into the wild is a biography and nonfiction book written by Jon Krakauer. The book is about the journey of Christopher Johnson Mccandless ( Alex )journey throughout the west coast of the USA. Christopher’s journey takes him places such as the the snowy state of Alaska, and the mountainous terrains of the Sierra Nevada’s. The main protagonist Christopher Mccandless is 24 years old, and believes that life is best lived alone. Testing his theory Christopher goes to live alone in the western US, until testing his limits and venturing to Alaska. Christopher also goes by the name of “ Alex” and “ Alexander Supertramp”. There are many more smaller characters such as the anchorage couple that find Christopher’s dead body in a bus in Alaska. Alex’s parents are Samuel, his father who is a NASA scientist and has been married twice. Christopher was born from his second marriage which was with Wilhelmina, Christopher’s mother. Christopher’s journey starts when he graduates college in Atlanta, then lies to his parents saying that he is going to go on a roadtrip in the summer in his car. The first site that Alex travels to is Lake Mead which is in Nevada. After Alex’s car gets destroyed in a flash flood, he sets out on foot with all his belongings in a bag that he luckily had in the car. In August of 1990 Alex’s parents go to see him and his apartment was vacated 5 months earlier. In

These first theme was Materialism. Christopher does not want things in general. He does not take the new car his parents offer him, does not use his life savings of $24,000 and instead donates it to charity. And even burns paper money in the forest which he could have used to buy food. Chris does not want power and money he just wants isolation and nature. The second theme which is almost obvious is Wilderness Survival. Christopher has to survive and not die in the wilderness by himself which is pretty hard if you have never tried