Analysis Of Into The Wild, By Jon Krakauer

The novel, Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer introduces a young adult by the name of Chris McCandless who is on a quest for his self-identity. Chris doesn’t necessarily have an itinerary planned for this adventure of his. He just goes with the flow and doesn’t worry about the next event in his life. He abandoned his family, his friends and his life, for what reason? That is the essential question. One might question the normality of this kid but I for one feel that he was completely normal but confused. He is all over the place. His adventure stretches from Carthage, SD to the Stampede Trail in Alaska where his journey sadly ends. Why is Krakauer writing this story of this lost boy who has no plan in life? I’ve constantly been asking myself the

same question throughout the course of this story. I think Krakauer wants the world to look at this story and ask themselves why such a privileged kid with so much promise would throw it all away.
Chris never remained in an area for more than 2 months during this story.

He wanted to see the world and grab it by the horns. A passage from Leo Tolstoy says, “I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence”(15). This is Chris’s life in a nutshell. He never was happy in one place during his life whether it is college or his family, it was all the same. I firmly believe that he would’ve stayed in South Dakota if wasn’t for the arrest of Westerberg. He found a family in Carthage and was more than happy. In my opinion Chris was just searching for a new family and place he could call home and when he lost that after leaving Carthage, he lost touch with society and forgot the reason why he was on this journey. Westerberg says, “Sometimes he tried too hard to make sense of the world, to figure out why people were bad to each other so often. A couple of times I tried to tell him it was a mistake to get too deep into that kind of stuff, but Alex got stuck on things”(18). Chris always overthinks society throughout the course of this story. He’s on this trip to become one with nature and to be at peace. He never truly has a plan. I compare him to Holden Caulfield of “The Catcher In the Rye”. Holden had no course of action and he also goes with the flow. They both have a complex outlook on society. Chris sees a canoe and decides to paddle through Mexico. He neither has a plan nor an itinerary. The only place he plans to attend is the wild bush of Alaska and we all know

how that turns out. The epigraph from William Wallace says, “It should not be denied… that being footloose has always exhilarated us. It is associated in our minds with escape from history and oppression and law and irksome obligations, with absolute freedom, and the road has always led west”(15). This strongly relates to this life-altering quest that Chris is partaking in. Chris is trying to find himself in the Wild West and this doesn’t require an itinerary but instead just a will to go wherever the wind takes him. In the end, one begins to think that Chris isn’t normal. He is actually lost and only wants to find his true identity. How he picks his locations, one will never really know.
Chris McCandless comes in touch with a man along his trip with a cover name of Ronald Franz.

Both Chris and Franz are personally changed during their short time together. I too have been influenced greatly by someone in my life. Krakauer wrote, “A disciplined, self-reliant man, he got along remarkably well despite his age and solitude. When McCandless came into his world, however, the boy undermined the old man’s meticulously constructed defenses”(55). Chris never felt as strong about Franz but Franz loved having Chris around. Franz never really felt the effect of a life without his wife and kid until he met Chris. Chris has never really had that father-son relationship and that’s what I believe he was searching for during the course of his trip. I think he found a mother in Jan Burress even though he hated when she acted like that and he found a friend in Wayne Westerberg. It never really makes sense to me what Chris is searching for on this trip. When I was 15 years old I shared an experience like this. I had to help out at a homeless shelter on Halloween. I obviously wanted no part of this and I thought that it made no sense for me to be at a shelter when I could be getting ready for one of my favorite nights of the year. Once I got there I was quickly taken back at the way these people lived. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. There were hundreds of people standing in line for one bowl of soup. I was being so selfish when all of these people didn’t have a

regular Halloween like me. I take everything for granted now and am thankful for everything because of this event. Krakauer wrote. “The boy unmasked the gaping void in Franz’s life even as he helped fill it. When McCandless departed as suddenly as he’d arrived, Franz found himself deeply and unexpectedly hurt”(56). Ron knew that he might not ever see Chris again and might never share that kind of relationship with anyone else during the last few years of his life. He was completely changed as a person by this encounter. In a letter to Ron Chris writes, “Ron, I really hope that as soon as you can you will get out of Salton City, put a little camper on the back of your pickup, and start seeing some of the great work that God has done here in the American West. You will see things and meet people and there is much to learn from them”(58). Ron actually takes this advice because he knows that he doesn’t deserve a life of solitude and Chris knows that as well. Chris has seen a handful of people that have greatly changed his life. It’s unbelievable how one person or event can have such an impact on someone to the point of actually changing their life. Chris did that for Ron and the homeless shelter did it for me.
One begins to question the actual normality of Chris McCandless and the overall decisions that he makes during the course of this story. I think Chris is normal from my perspective along with Everett Reuss and Carl McCunn. Rosellini and Waterman on the other hand aren’t normal in my opinion. I strongly stand by this because Chris wasn’t necessarily out there like Waterman and Rosellini; he was a down to earth kid searching for something more in his life. I think its wrong how people see this story unfold and suddenly jump to the conclusion that Chris is a maniac. Krakauer didn’t write this book to highlight the life of a crazy kid. He wrote this book to prove against this and show that he was only misguided with no direction in life. An epigraph at the beginning of chapter eight says, ”We have in America The Big Two-hearted River” tradition: taking your wounds to the wilderness for a cure, a conversation, a rest, or whatever. If your wounds aren’t too bad, it works. But this this isn’t Michigan for Faulkner’s Big Woods in Mississippi, for that matter). This is Alaska”(70). I don’t think Chris expected the harsh conditions that he met in Alaska. Like Reuss he thought that he could just walk in and walk out untouched. I don’t think that a kid who is looking to commit suicide would write an S.O.S. note. If he wasn’t normal he would’ve just curled up and died with absolutely no thought of getting help. Carl McCunn was normal but stupid. He knew he was going to die and couldn’t face that pain so he shot himself. Rosellini wasn’t normal. He had no intention of living another second of his life. Waterman was looking for death and finally found it within the suicide missions that he partook in. All these names back up the fact that Chris is truly normal. If he weren’t normal then he wouldn’t be able to have such a lasting effect on people. Everyone he met was skeptical of him when they first met but quickly grew fond of him. Everyone at least once in their lives will be walking down a street and gazing at all the people and will sum them up in one quick glance. We have gotten to this point in society today where outward appearance changes the way people look at you. I think many people who saw this scruffy kid who went to Alaska to curl up and die didn’t even know half of the story and just deemed him as a messed up kid. Krakauer wrote this to change people’s opinion of Chris. James Brady says, “When I first met John he was prancing across campus in a long black cape and blue Elton John-type glasses that had a star between the lenses”(76). I would consider this to be abnormal. I would consider Chris’ journey to be abnormal but I believe that he is pretty normal. He grew up under a pretty well-structured household and attended a great college. This kid is definitely normal on my standards. Rosellini and Waterman embarked on similar quests for self-discovery as Chris but were not similar in any other way, shape or form.
I believe that many people will analyze this story and never be able to come up with a true solution to Chris McCandless’ intentions. My belief is that he was lost and trying to discover his purpose in society. He lost touch with reality and went to the point of no return and regretted this decision once it was too late. Chris is not crazy or abnormal, he is just misguided. He found a true home and friend in Wayne Westerberg. Once that friend was lost, he then lost hope in society. Why he chose to do this specific thing at this point in his young life, I will never know. I do know that he was a confused college graduate with a messed up home-life. Many newly college graduates face the same dilemma with their lives in which they feel perplexed with their spot in society. I will never understand Chris’ intentions. This is what makes him so interesting.