Michael Soto
9/15/2015
Period 4
Into the Wild Ap questions
1. After reading chapter 1 of Into the Wild, I have the impression that while he seems friendly, he possess a number of negative qualities. Chris seems to be very stubborn, and most of all overconfident. While Chris seems excited to go to Alaska, but is dangerously unprepared, and seems to overplay his experience, while refusing any help. “Im absolutely positive,” he assured Gallien, “I won’t run into anything I can’t deal with on my own” Page 6 Chapter 1. This example perfectly shows his arrogance. By saying this Chris shows how he believes he can take anything on, and is ready for the wilderness, he thinks he is invincible, and is incredibly confident in his survival skills. “Gallien
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offered to drive Alex all the way to Anchorage, buy him some decent gear, and then drive him back to wherever he wanted to go.” “No thanks anyway, Alex replied, I’ll be fine with what I’ve got” Page 6 Chapter 1. This part of the book displays Chris’s stubbornness and refusal to take any help. 2.
What Chris meant when he had proclaimed this is that he wants to leave his current state of life and start fresh on this “Epic Journey”. On Page 22 Chapter 3 the story says, “Driving west to Atlanta, he intended to invent an utterly new life for himself, one in which he would be free to wallow in unfiltered experience.” “To symbolize the complete severance from his previous life, he even adopted a new name. No longer would he answer to Chris McCandless; he was now Alexander Supertramp, master of his own destiny.” In this quote it is explained, Chris wanted to abandon his old way of life to head west and start over, even changing his name.” I agree with his motivation for leaving as shown in this quote, Chris just wants to start over, and be free. Chris wants to live a life that he chooses, not his parents, hence why he even decided on renaming himself to what he wants his name to be, not his …show more content…
parents. 3. An experience that Chris has that may have helped him find this “meaning” Is when he had encountered the flash flood. After the flood the battery on his Datsun had died out. Chris left behind his Datsun car and buried his possessions. After this he burned all the money he had with him. “McCandless was exhilarated: he saw the flash flood as an opportunity to shed unnecessary baggage. . . He buried his Winchester deer-hunting rifle and a few other possessions that he might one day recover. . . One hundred twenty-three dollars in legal tender was promptly reduced to ash and smoke.” Page 29 Chapter 5 Chris’s interpretation of the “meaning” were that you do not need money or material things to live life. 4.
Chris had considered “Plastic people” as people who were primarily consumerist, the people who are superficial and only lived to make money.” McCandless explained to Burres that he’d grown tired of Bullhead, tired of people punching a clock, tired of the “plastic people” he worked with, and decided to get the hell out of town. “Page 43 Chapter5. I agree with Chris’s assessment in that in modern times, life seems to revolve around earning money and buying materials. Two things that Chris considers plastic are; socks “He always wore shoes without socks- just plain couldn’t stand to wear socks.” Page 40 Chapter 5, and soap “They started asking him if he needed some soap or anything. That made him mad-you could tell. But he never showed it outright.” Page 41 Chapter
4 5. Ronald Franz and Chris McCandless had shared a strong bond despite knowing each other for a short time, Both Ronald and Chris benefitted from this brief relationship. Franz had someone to be close to, as he had been lonely for so long, that he grew close to Chris for intimacy. “One can only speculate about why Franz became so attached to McCandless so quickly, but the affection he felt was genuine, intense, and unalloyed. Franz had been living in solitary existence for many years.” Page 55 Chapter 6. Meanwhile Chris learned how to craft items using leather from Franz. “An accomplished leatherworker, Franz taught Alex the secrets of his craft; for his first project McCandless produced a tooled leather belt.”
The book about Chris McCandless’s journey into the Alaskan bush, Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer, received a lot of criticism about Chris being foolish for being unprepared. From the articles that I have read, most of the sources do believe that he was poorly prepared for his journey. But there are a few people who believe he was prepared mentally, and an even smaller amount believe he was fully prepared. I believe that Chris only knew what he was doing mentally. He did not have the correct tools or the developed skills to survive, for an extended period of time in the wild. But, he did know what he was about to get himself into. He planned out the trip and knew exactly what his risk factors were. Chris McCandless was either prepared mentally, both mentally and physically, or he was ill-prepared for his voyage.
He left and “walked into the wild”, as he said, to escape his problems (Krakauer, 69). He never confronted his dad about his feelings. Carine McCandless talks about this personality trait in Chris saying, “Chris was the sort of person who brooded on things. If something bothered him; he wouldn’t come right out and say it” (Krakauer, 122). He changed his name, He wasn’t trying to take pride in his “adventure”. It was an extra and unnecessary precaution to ensure that his problems would not affect his escape. Chris McCandless changed his name and then continued his life ignoring all of the problems he had ever
After reading chapter 1 of Into the Wild, I have the impression that while he seems friendly, he possess a number of negative qualities. Chris seems to be very stubborn, and most of all overconfident. While Chris seems excited to go to Alaska, but is dangerously unprepared, and seems to overplay his experience, while refusing any help. “Im absolutely positive,” he assured Gallien, “I won’t run into anything I can’t deal with on my own” Page 6 Chapter 1. This example perfectly shows his arrogance. By saying this Chris shows how he believes he can take anything on, and is ready for the wilderness, he thinks he is invincible, and is incredibly confident in his survival skills. “Gallien
According to the book Into The Wild and Chris’s parents “there was always a little wanderlust in the family, and it was clear early on that Chris had inherited it” (108). Billie’s dad Loren Johnson and Chris both loved the wildlife, Loren was charmed by Chris and Chris adored his grandfather When Chris was eight Walt took him on a mountain climbing trip where he carried his own backpack, hiking the mountains became a father-son tradition. While on his trip to Alaska many people that he meet offered him stuff so he could survive there but he would always deny their offer. One person that had offered him rice did not accept a “no” so Chris was forced to take it. The last person to see Chris on his journey was a union electrician called Jim Gallien. Jim was on his way to Anchorage, Jim thought Chris was crazy to think he could survive in the forests of Alaska, but Chris’s love for nature and his adventurous spirit were too strong to fear all the warnings people kept telling him. From just these few things that Chris was introduced to made him love the wild and he became
Throughout Into the Wild, Krakauer portrays Christopher McCandless as an infallibly eager young man hoping to distance himself from the society he so obviously loathes, to "live off the land," entirely independent of a world which has "conditioned [itself] to a life of security." Chris, contrarily to this depiction, is disparagingly viewed by some as a "reckless idiot" who lacked the sense he needed to survive in the Alaskan wilderness. This derogatory assessment of Chris's mindset is representative of the society he hopes to escape and contains all the ignorance that causes him to feel this way. Nevertheless, he is misjudged by these critics, allowing Krakauer to hold the more accurate interpretation of Chris's character, his goals, and his accomplishments.
Throughout Into The Wild, the people Chris interacts with along his journey to Alaska make an impact on Chris. Although the people Chris met do leave an impact on him, Chris is able to leave a greater impact on the people he met. Whether it was Ron Franz, Jan Burres, or Tracy, Chris stayed with them longer than they stayed with Chris. Throughout the book, it is very evident that the impact Chris makes on people is bigger than the Impact people made on Chris.
McCandless had exceptional reasons for leaving home and taking on the life of a homeless person living in the wild. McCandless wanted to experience this type of individuality and to experience the life that Henry David Thoreau once lived, however there where more reasons on why he ultimately left home and decided to live the life of a free man. In the book, McKinney explains that Chris was convinced that humans had grown into inferior people and that it was his goal to return to the natural state of being a human (74). He also continued to say that Chris was experiencing what ancient civilizations experienced and that by the end of his lifestyle he had incorporated elements of Neolithic (74). This reveals his intensions from the beginning of his state of being an ultimately the beginning of his un...
Chris McCandless lived a life in which he disgusted by human civilization, and left it, eventually being led to his death in Alaska. McCandless entered the Alaskan wilderness severely unprepared, a brutal error that cost him his life. In the novel, Into the Wild by John Krakauer, Chris glances into his mindset by they way of his journal, history, and analysis of his life reveals that Chris McCandless as an arrogant and judgemental narcissist, while not mentally unstable, had a condescending attitude towards society and perished not only from his reckless stupidity but also from his unparalleled ego. Chris McCandless was immune to love and had an obsession with nature and society, him showing characteristics that created the appearance of McCandless
... every aspect of his life whether it be his education, physical endurance, or making it through the Alaskan wilderness with nothing more than a rifle, a backpack, and a road map. Chris was aware of his differences and that he did not fit into society. He fully embraced that and and chose to lead his own path. Chris led a happy life according to one of his last journal entries he wrote, “I have had a happy life and thank the lord. Goodbye and may God bless all!” (Krakauer 199). Chris was willing to risk everything to gain that happiness. His ambition to enter the wilderness, in the end, took his life but that did not stop him. He would have rather died a happy man than lived a miserable one. Chris ventured out into the wilderness and found himself; a tragic story for a tragic hero.
Jon Krakauer, fascinated by a young man in April 1992 who hitchhiked to Alaska and lived alone in the wild for four months before his decomposed body was discovered, writes the story of Christopher McCandless, in his national bestseller: Into the Wild. McCandless was always a unique and intelligent boy who saw the world differently. Into the Wild explores all aspects of McCandless’s life in order to better understand the reason why a smart, social boy, from an upper class family would put himself in extraordinary peril by living off the land in the Alaskan Bush. McCandless represents the true tragic hero that Aristotle defined. Krakauer depicts McCandless as a tragic hero by detailing his unique and perhaps flawed views on society, his final demise in the Alaskan Bush, and his recognition of the truth, to reveal that pure happiness requires sharing it with others.
Was he a reckless idiot? That is the big question. This is what people always seem to talk about when they talk about Chris McCandless. There are many people who think that Chris McCandless was a reckless idiot who was mentally ill, or something else was wrong with Chris. It seems that almost everybody that met Chris thought maybe Chris was crazy or had problems. Here are just a few things that people said about Chris and his state of mind. Pg 40 Zarza admits saying, "he was always going on about trees and nature and weird stuff like that. We all thought he was missing a few screws. Pg 42 Charlie said, "seemed like a kid who was looking for something." Pg 45 Burres said "I thought Alex had lost his mind when he told us about his 'great Alaskan odyssey, ' as he called it."
Chris did what he wanted to do hence him traveling the United States to end his journey at Alaska. The unstoppable determination with selfishness added on top made it the determining aspect in the fall of Chris. To go into the wilderness and write in a journal in third person about his time there takes some massive resolve. It seems that “There was just no talking the guy out of it. He was determined.” stated Gallien (someone who knew
All in all, it is interesting how the trials of life can lead a person into an awakening that inspires millions. Many people believe that walking “into the wild” to live off the land and find himself alone in nature was arrogant, foolish and irresponsible. Chris lacks of knowledge about the wild was a major factor in his death. Chris did not plan how he will survive in the wilderness without proper equipments. He misunderstood that he would have no problem in setting in the wild. Chris immature manner and decisions lead him to starvation and ultimately death. If he planned it out in the beginning he would have saved his life.
Never did Chris McCandless feel so alive than when he abandon his wealthy lifestyle to live the life of a vagabond. Wealth has been associated with happiness, even though this is not always the case. Money may make the world go round, as well as have the power to manipulate and control situations towards one’s favor, yet as much as people crave it they despise it as well. People, such as Chris McCandless, have proved that while riches may give one a comfortable lifestyle, it will not always be a fulfilling one. Life is not going to revolve around one’s paycheck. Society has marked those who do not accept the accumulation of either money or power as the purpose of life to be exiles. Throughout Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, the depths of Chris
...e wilderness.” Krakauer stats this in the book to explain what Chris was up against walking into the wilderness. No ordinary man would do this to survive out on his own facing the wilderness. Kleinfeld made an extraordinary remark in her article “McCandless: Hero or Dumb Jerk” “Jon Krakauer's best seller "Into the Wild" immortalizes this young man, who walked into the wilderness with no map, no ax, no mosquito repellent and no first aid equipment.” She makes a good statement about his bravery because not many men would go out with no supplies to make them survive. He went out by himself, no supplies and try to pull off to live in the wild.