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Character traits of chris mccandless essay
Character traits of chris mccandless essay
Character Traits Of Chris Mccandless
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During his journey, McCandless was a leather tramp, he travelled on foot and he would often hitchhike to get from place to place, and this led to him meeting new people. One of the people he met was Jan Burres. Jan Burres, a forty-one year old rubber tramp, picked up McCandless because he reminded her of her own son. Burres would constantly ask McCandless if, he has let his, “...people know what you’re up to.” (33). Burres’ had a son like McCandless and he also left her one day without notice. Burres was devastated when she saw he had gone and she could only imagine the amount of pain McCandless’ mother is going through. When asked questions about his family, McCandless would only roll his eyes. McCandless wasn’t fond of his parents, he had different views than they did. …show more content…
McCandless was overconfident with his preparedness and shut down anyone that offered assistance. It took time for McCandless to accept Burres’ help. When Burres dropped off McCandless at his destination, she noticed that he, “... pulled it out of his pack when we weren’t looking and hid it up under the seat.”(33). McCandless took out what Burres had given him. McCandless. If McCandless had not rejected help then his outcome may have been different. Altogether, Chris McCandless arrogant and selfish personality was shown by how he left his family and how he rejected help. Overall, Callarman’s opinion about Chris McCandless was valid. McCandless was bright growing up and he was also ignorant. He lacked common sense when he was faced with new situations. He went to Alaska unprepared which cost him his life. He left his family without telling them of his plans. This resulted in them being filled with terror as they do not know if their son was still living. McCandless was hubristic and this was shown when he rejected help from others. Chris McCandless’ arrogance led him to his overall
McCandless is seen in different ways because of his decision to leave his family. One of many that voiced their opinion of McCandless...
Chris McCandless’ relationship with his father was not ideal. Built up resentment caused by unfaithfulness to his mother caused Chris to cut ties with his father. For most of Chris’ life, his father played
Christopher “Alexander Supertramp” McCandless was a dreamer. However, unlike most of us nowadays, Christopher turned his desire for adventure into reality. Similar to Buddha, he gave up his wealth, family, home, and most possessions except the ones he carried before embarking on his journey. He traveled by various methods, mostly on foot, to eventually reach his desired goal in the Alaskan wilderness. Unfortunately, due to various mistakes, Christopher ultimately passed and his body was found in a neglected Fairbank City Transit Bus. His motivation to achieve his goal was based on the many aspects of his life. Chris’s dysfunctional family weighed heavily on him, one prime reason for driving him onto the road of freedom.
McCandless used the idea of escaping society from “Walden” by Henry David Thoreau and tried to mesh it together with the ideas of solitude and isolation to form his own beliefs. McCandless misinterpreted what Thoreau was saying. Thoreau states, “I had not lived there a week…It is true, I fear, that others may have fallen into it, and so helped to keep it open.” (Thoreau 3).Thoreau specifically states in this quote that he does not want others to follow or even go do what he did. He also did build the cabin a few miles away from a town because he knew he would go back one day. Thoreau was a sane person in doing this because crazy people stray too far away from society despite the consequences. He believed that he had other things to do with his life and not spending a minute more in that lifestyle. McCandless still went out into the wilderness away from society against Thoreau’s words. Chris was crazy to shun s...
Krakauer writes that McCandless was, “consuming fewer calories than he was burning” (188). The other possible sequence of events is that McCandless was poisoned through ingesting potato seeds that contained solanine, “a poison that occurs in plants of the nightshade family, which causes, vomiting, diarrhea, headache, and lethargy in the short term, and adversely affects the heart rate and blood pressure when ingested over an extended period” (190). However, the later course of events is highly unlikely given that McCandless would have needed to consume an incredibly high count of said seeds. According to Krakauer, “…given the light weight of his pack when Gallien dropped him off, it is extremely unlikely that he carried more than a few grams of potato seeds…” (190). Over the years, more explanations have come up, but there is no still conclusive evidence to point how he actually died. McCandless’ body was found in the abandoned bus by Gordon Samel, an employee at an auto-body shop in Anchorage, on September 6, 1992, two and a half weeks after Christopher McCandless passed away. Along with finding McCandless’ body, a couple from Anchorage, Alaska found a “disquieting note” taped to the door of the bus (12). The note read, “S.O.S. I need your help. I am injured, near death, and too weak to hike out of here. I am all alone, this is no joke. In the name of God, please remain to save me. I am out collecting berries close by and shall return this evening. Thank you, Chris McCandless. August?”
To begin with, McCandless’s decision to walk into the wild was acceptable because he wanted to become an inspiration and an individual. Emerson states, “There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance: that imitation is suicide” (Emerson). Chris McCandless left to shun the conformist society that he could feel changing him. Chris wanted the chains that bound him to be broken. Society takes the individual and locks it up and destroys it. According to Emerson, “It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion: it is easy to in solitude to live after our own: but the great man is he who in the midst of the crow keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude” (Emerson). McCandless left his materialistic family to be his own person ad to be unique. The world’s opinion does not make the man wh...
not afford to raise him at the time. He spent his life being raised by
Chris’s mother and Walt’s second wife, Billie really took McCandless’s departure to heart. On page 125, Krakauer has stated how Billie would never leave “the house without leaving a note for Chris posted on the door.” She was probably worried she would not be there when he would return, that is, if he were even alive. His sister, Carine, claims that although she knew Chris was not going to write to anyone, she was just as “worried when we didn’t hear from them” (Krakauer 123). Even Walt, the most temperamental of them all, stated that if had even the slightest idea, he would have “gotten a lock on his whereabouts” and brought his son home.
Chris McCandless was a young man who did everything in his power to try and represent that freedom he was searching for. McCandless had everything before we went out but he decided to go out and travel by choice. He was considered a selfish man because when someone offered him to help him he rejects it in a nice way since we wants to do things himself. In the book Into the wild he states that,"You don't need to worry about me. I have a college education. I'm not destitute. I'm living like this by choice."
set out to attack and confute what he saw as the errors of his age. He
...elligence to help him last an extended period of time in the Alaskan wilderness. In truth, McCandless was someone who wanted to find himself. He wanted to get away from a life in which he could not find fulfilment, which is something many others would be able to relate to. Although most people would not go to such extremes to find fulfilment, everyone has a different way of finding happiness and going after what their heart truly desires. For McCandless, his desire was to live out in the wild. Unfortunately, this man of great character did not succeed in getting out alive. However, that does not change the fact that he tried. McCandless knew what he wanted for himself and he persisted, regardless of the obstacles he faced. He put an incredible amount of effort into accomplishing his goals and never gave up, and that is why Christopher McCandless is someone to admire.
Krakauer states, “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, of friendship, and all the messy emotional baggage that comes with it” (55). This had also occurred a few months prior in Niland Slabs, where he met Burres and Tracy. He had made friends there, and Tracy had developed feelings for him, but he rebuffed any of her advancements; he didn’t want to get involved with others, not after having left home for his journey. To him, having had friends and family that he left behind, he loved people, but he didn’t want to be close to them in any way other than purely being around them. Growing up with a difficult family relationship, such as McCandles’s, which caused him to push people away; it’s easy to relate to him in that aspect.
Alternatively, by the end of the novel father is unable to adapt. Fathers can no longer adjust his life once his wife and Mrs. Shears leave and reject him hence why he kills Wellington. Afterwards, when Christopher finds the letters the father admits, “When you're mother left, Mrs Shears was very good to us… I thought we were friends… I guess I thought wrong… Maybe if I had given it a kick it would probably have backed off but... all I could think was that she cared more for this bloody dog than she did about you or me. And it was like everything I was bottling up for two years just,” (121-122) The father cannot move on after his wife leaves him and when Mrs. Shears indicates doing the same he is overcome with rage. Instead of finding a healthy
Another thing is McCandless’s equipment that he goes into the wild with and how it caused his death. Some of the things that McCandless h...
McCandless was a fearless human being. I think that most of the people’s ideologies and personalities have to do with how they were raised by the parents and everything that was taught to them. When a lack of love exists from a parent towards his child, a hate can be created without knowing it. McCandless could have gone away from society to escape reality or, for being in a place where he could find himself at peace. Either one, we can assume that he obviously had different ideas about civilization; the idea of having a life full of danger and adventure inspired and excited him.