Who Is Krakauer's Argument In Chapter 8

Throughout chapters 8 and 9, the author showed his bias towards Chris McCandless, which is an act of defiance to his position as an objective journalist, when he attempted to alter the readers’ negative point of view towards Chris by the introduction of different people who had similar experiences and characteristics as him and then making comparison.
After reading the previous chapters, the readers have already made their own judgement on Chris, which are probably mostly negative. To address this issue, Krakauer initiates chapter 8 by introducing negative comments and mails not only about Chris but also to him, the author. These will serve as an argument that he will later attempt to disprove while at the same time, still informing the readers about what makes Chris special and unique.

He starts off by introducing the story of Gene Rossellini, a brilliant man who chose to abandon society to look for answers to his curiosities but he ended up committing suicide when he did not get the results that he wanted. Like Rossellini, Chris also chose to abandon his wealth and chose to cut himself from society due to his beliefs and connection with nature. In contrast, unlike Rossellini, Chris did not give up and did not commit suicide when he made a fatal mistake which caused him his life.
Next, the author introduces the story of John Mallon Waterman, a risk taker and a very talented mountain climber, who eventually became mentally unstable due to the depressing situations he experienced which possibly prompted him to climb Mt. Denali and end his life. Just like Waterman, Chris also went on risky and uncertain journeys to challenge himself, but unlike Waterman, Chris did not go to these dangerous journeys to harm himself but rather, to live his