Christopher McCandless, a foolish, narcissistic young man confidently ventured into the Alaskan wilderness unprepared and paid for it with his life. At least that’s what some people believe about him, but McCandless was more than just a foolish kid. McCandless was a courageous young man that dropped the luxurious lifestyle given to him to follow his heart and live naturally in harmony with nature. McCandless was the embodiment of great philosophers’ ideas such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, he was morally driven and had dreams that nothing was going to stop him from reaching, and in many people’s eyes, that made him completely unworthy of the injudicious, woefully naive title he was given by hundreds of critics. Christopher McCandless, the central figure in Jon Krakauer’s novel, Into The Wild, was an ambitious man that developed …show more content…
McCandless’s cause of death was scientifically proven to be the fault of the consumption of moldy wild potato seeds. McCandless’ cause of death is crucial in understanding why he was so unworthy of being called a narcissistic, unprepared wreck. Chris didn’t die because he was inexperienced, although many mistakes he made could’ve been avoided with physical solutions such as a map or compass, none of his mistakes were directly lethal. Chris even had the knowledge not to mix up H. mackenzii and H. alpinum which further proves that he was not unprepared. It was simply the unfortunate circumstance of moldy seeds. Many people including Krakauer were “confident he would’ve survived” if he wasn’t severely poisoned by the seeds. If he wasn’t weakened, maybe he would’ve been able to hold out long enough for Lake Teklanika to go down in