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Symbolism In Jon Krakauer's 'Into The Wild'

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Journal 1
Krakauer, Jon. Into The Wild. New York: Villard, 1996. Print.

Journal 2
In Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer uses the symbol of money repeatedly to show the motives behind Chris’ madness. In the story Chris is motivated to venture off into the rough Alaskan wild to truly live out his life the way he wants too. Chris leaves behind all of his money and abandons society. Throughout the story we see many instances of money used as a symbolic explanation for Chris’ actions. Towards the beginning of the story in Chapter 4 we experience Chris burn all of his money before his trip, here money is shown as society and through him burning his money we are able to see his views against society and his needs to disconnect form it. We are faced with another encounter with the symbol of money in the author’s note when Jon describes Chris’ life talking about how he belonged to a family which was well off, here the symbol of money plays a vital role towards understanding Chris’ personal morals as money isn’t as valued to him as the rest of society (Chris’s disconnect from society is shown again). Money comes up again towards the beginning of the story in Chapter 1 when Chris is …show more content…

As each chapter come’s there is an account from Chris’ diary to accompany it. Along with this is some type of quote/ inspirational passage which lets us in on what is to come in the chapter ahead. Krakauer is able to maintain this structure throughout the whole book and through this we are able to pick apart the journey of Chris McCandless to construct our own opinions about his mysterious persona. The structure Krakauer creates for us in Into the Wild is significant to our understanding of Chris and his journey as it sheds insight onto his life from many different

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Going out into the wild all by yourself can be nerve wracking and lonely. Jon Krakauer makes Chris McCandless seemed like a noble person who took the initiative to try to go out and live into the wild. The book Into the Wild written by Jon Krakauer, is about a teenager named Chris McCandless leaving society and traveling to Alaska by himself with nothing else but a bag of rice and a small .22 caliber gun. Chris is heroic because he went to Alaska by himself without any knowledge of Alaska and didn’t know any of the dangers of Alaska. One way Krakauer make Chris seem noble is when Chris is about to enter Alaska he tells Gallien “ I’m goin’ to get on up there live off the land,go claim me a piece of the good life” (Krakauer 4).

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Being materialistic isn’t such a bad thing, but some people take it to the extreme by either wanting too many things or having less than enough to survive. In the book “Into the Wild” Chris McCandless does not feel that materialism is important. When Chris tries to be less materialistic he takes it to the extreme and tries to live off of the wilderness with only a 10 lb bag of rice and a .22 caliber rifle. In the book “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakaur, Chris McCandless is very anti-materialistic and gives away all of his things, proving that having a lot of possessions was not something he valued. Materialism is a big issue for Chris.

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