Thoreau And Chris Mccandless In Jon Krakauer's Into The

Transcendental Connections between Henry David Thoreau’s Walden and Chris McCandless in John Krakauer’s Into the Wild Henry David Thoreau, Jon Krakauer, and Chris McCandless are all strong believers in Transcendentalism. Transcendentalism is a 19th century philosophy that values self-wisdom, individualism, and non-conformity. Both Thoreau and McCandless embrace these ideas greatly. Chris’s actions in Into the Wild show that the transcendental beliefs of Thoreau were important to him. The first idea to discuss is the idea of living deliberately: doing something just to do it, to gain spiritual enlightenment and self-wisdom. Chris talks about this in Into the Wild when he writes, “THE CLIMACTIC BATTLE TO KILL THE FALSE BEING WITHIN AND VICTORIOUSLY

Chris addresses this in his letter to Ron Franz, “I think you should really make a radical change in your lifestyle… So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one piece of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future.” (Krakauer 56-57) What Chris is saying here is that even when people become unhappy, they do nothing to change it. Even if they want to change, they do not because they are used to a life of security and comfort. Thoreau also writes about routine living and conformity in this quote, “The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!” (Walden) In this quote, readers can see that McCandless and Thoreau have very similar beliefs in regard to the idea of routine living and conformity. It is clear that both men believe that conformity and routine living are detrimental to the human