Who Is Chris Mccandless In Into The Wild

The romantic notion of condemning society and leaving everything behind is one many have had, but next to none have carried out. While there are reasons for this, Christopher McCandless disregarded them and completed this surreal experience. John Krakauer’s book, Into the Wild, chronicled this journey from Virginia to Alaska. On this expedition McCandless touched many people’s lives, working odd-jobs and hitching rides. He eventually met his end while on his Alaskan odyssey, his most ambitious campaign. Many people think that he deserved this fate because of his disregard for the dangers of the Alaskan wilderness. However, Chris McCandless was independent and he did not care for fitting in. His happiness with his life was uncommon. He was

Until, when he finally decided that it was time to escape society, and start living independently, to find out exactly who he was. “Hey, Guys! This is the last communication you shall receive from me. I now walk out to live amongst the wild. Take care, it was great knowing you. ALEXANDER” (Krakauer, 69). The day Chris said those words he was finally living his own life, instead of the life his parents gave him. He was proud to walk out of the life he didn’t want anymore and live the life that he always wanted to live. Besides Chris living his own life instead of his parents, he also lived to find his inner self.

Chris McCandless was a man who had everything to have a successful life. However, Chris McCandless decided to leave it all behind. Chris thought that he was going to go leave all society behind to go live in the wild. Chris thought that it was going to be very hard. Krakauer He was arrogant and ignorance toward the nature and society. In Into the Wild Chris leaves his life behind to live a life alone in the wild. In Into the Wild Krakauer’s message from Chris’s journey is for people to never get too ignorant or too confident because anything can go wrong at anytime.

Chris McCandless was a complex, if not contradictory person. He was warm and friendly towards others, yet he avoided long-term relationships with those he met on his journey. Also, he was strongly independent, yet graciously accepted rides as a hitchhiker. Chris was also a paradox in that he was ashamed of his wealth, yet was successful at making a profit. However, Chris was above all, a sojourner. He sought to live apart from human civilization, apart from government authority, and liberated from a life that was dependent on a multitude of material possessions.

First things first, Chris Mccandless followed his dream to escape society and live in nature. Once he got out of society and was on the road he delighted, "McCandless was thrilled to be on his way north, and he was relieved as well—relieved that he had again evaded the impending threat of human intimacy” (Krakauer, 55). Chris had the capability of escaping the society where he could go off on a journey to find himself. Chris is one of the few people out there that has the mindset of doing whatever it is to achieve his dream. Not many people in this world are able to do that especially if it is going out into the wild to fulfill your dream, maybe they will swim 50 miles in an ocean

Into the Wild written by Jon Krakauer illustrates the life and death of Christopher McCandless, and his search for the true meaning in life. McCandless’ family was well-off and he graduated from Emory University with honors. Everything in McCandless’ life came easy, and because of this he wished to find what it meant to work for something. Through his perilous journey across the United States, McCandless found a way to inspire others everywhere he went. His independent and carefree mindset inspired other adventure seekers. Because McCandless desired to push the status-quo, he trades material wealth in order to find the richness in life.

Chris’s passion for the wild began in his childhood. His father, Walt, would take him hiking every year since the age of eight. Theses backpacking trips ignited a longing for adventure that was unquenchable. In chapter five of Into The Wild, the author, Jon Krakauer writes, “McCandless was stirred by the austerity of this landscape, by its saline beauty. The desert sharpened the sweet ache of his longing, amplified it, gave shape to it in sere geology and clean slant of light.” Krakauer refers to Chris’s passion for nature to guide the reader toward a better understanding of his character. For someone who is not entranced by wilderness like McCandless was, it helps to understand how he became infatuated with it. Chris respected nature to such an extreme that when he was dying in the

McCandless once again misunderstood what Thoreau said in “Walden” about leaving society. As stated in Into The Wild, “Near the end of his trip, it turned out, Chris had gotten lost in the Mojave Desert and had nearly succumbed to dehydration” (Krakauer 118). Chris had been too stubborn to believe he could not achieve something since he had proven to be good at everything he tried. Chris’ hubris would have to be his arrogance in believing he could do anything he wanted to. By McCandless going into the Mojave Desert was absurd because it was too far from society. Being too far from society can have consequences especially if you need help. Chris’ mind was too clouded to see or think that throughout his entire life. Chris McCandless misinterpreted Thoreau’s writing and he was crazy to shun society, which also help build on the idea that McCandless misunderstood “Self Reliance” and he made actions that ended up being hypocritical later on in his life.

Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild portrays Chris McCandless through his stubborn, yet intellectual drive to stray away from society, acting as an “oddball” in many people’s eyes in order to make the statement of the true meaning of life just as Fahrenheit 451 also is portrayed through Montag, a rebel acting against society. In a sense, Chris McCandless wants to prove that “the joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun” and through this, Chris McCandless takes on a journey for 144 days (Krakauer, Into the Wild). By endeavouring a 144 day journey before his demise, McCandless wishes to explain that taking risk allows exhilarating emotions to be felt, something in which is not acquired when in the confinements of self comfort. However, Chris McCandless understand and supports as to why young people take risks, that is because young people choose not to be influenced on the stigma that they will get old and not be able to have fun perse, in which the stigma is generated knowing “many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of

Although Chris McCandless’ controlling and toxic family environment was a major motive for his escape, his deep-seated internal battle was simply an irresistible impulse for discovery and liberty. Chris’ journey shows a new level of freedom; what true independence holds. He set out into nature alone without support of family or friends, searching for a path unlike those of most, and running from a barred cage of conventional living. Unsatisfied and somewhat angry with himself and his life of abundance in money, opportunity, and security, his preceding experiences and determined character lead him to an inevitable flee into no-mans land. Throughout the novel, Krakauer wants the reader to understand that there is more to Chris than his habit of criticising authority and defying society’s pressures. He needed more from himself, and more from life. He wasn’t an ordinary man, therefore could not live with an ordinary life. Krakauer demonstrates this by creating a complex persona for Chris that draws you in from the beginning.

Imagine if someone took all the money they had and burned it all. After that you find that you only have twenty- five dollars left. With that you had to try to survive in a new city with just that money and nothing else. Well, two young and brave men gave up everything they owned in order to do an experiment that could change their lives forever. A man named Christopher McCandless’s story is told in John Krakauer’s writings, including an article called “Death of an Innocent’’ and a popular and good book Into the Wild. Another man named Adam Shepard wrote his own book and told his story in the book Scratch Beginnings. Both Adam and Chris had goals set off by different things such as motivation and the impacts on many people along their journeys.

People considered Chris’ search for happiness crazy and insane, but that is just their opinions. Other’s opinions didn’t mean anything to Chris because he did what he wanted, and no one was going to stop him, no matter how crazy his goals were. He wasn’t just searching for happiness but as Krakauer said, “McCandless went into the wilderness not primarily to ponder the the nature or the world at large but, rather, to explore the inner country of his own soul”(183). Chris went into the wilderness to learn who he was and why he was that way, and in his search for his identity, he had to search for his happiness, as that is what he lives for. Chris went into the Alaskan Bush in order to live the way he wanted.

Into the Wild is a nonfiction book written by Jon Krakauer. Into the Wild is about a young man named Chris McCandless, who ventures off into the wilderness to get away from everything that is happening in his life and to find peace within the wild. This includes him starting a new life with a new name, giving all his money to charity, and creating his new temporary family from those he meets on the road. Chris McCandless constructs identity through his actions by creating a new character, interests with those whom he meets that share his own, values and beliefs of what he thinks he is right, making good and bad choices at the same time.

In John Krakauer's novel, Into The Wild, the reader is presented with a captivating character named Chris McCandless, or Alex Supertramp. Krakauer noted that if McCandless “wasn’t incompetent-he wouldn’t have last 113 days.” Although one could agree with Krakauer when stating that McCandless is not crazy, or an outcast, one could also argue that he is still incompetent in some ways, which is seen in how he interacts with nature, rather than with people. McCandless had a unique charisma and charm to him that made him get friends easily and as a result had a strong effect on people. The quote, “the more they talked, the less Alex struck Gallien as a nutcase,” shows how other people perceived him.

Chris McCandless, the main character in Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, had troubles with his dad and wanted to leave society, so he donated most of his money and left his home to experience the wild. In Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer characterizes Christopher McCandless as self-reliant and unmaterialistic. Chris McCandless is self-reliant because he thought his instincts and intuition would guide him on his journey. Chris began his adventure after telling his parents he would “‘live off the and for a few months’” (Krakauer, 4).