Chris McCandless always felt held back and restricted, either by parents or by an indifferent society in general. An abhorrence against the powers that be and against what he saw as an unfulfilled life led him to embark on a great adventure of solitude and self-discovery. Chris’ youth was defined by a sort of cabin fever, one that instilled him with an unshakable desire to escape the monotony of average life in pursuit of greater meaning. He hated that everyone pushed the traditional path on him, school to college, college to career, career to retirement. Why should others dictate the way he chose to approach life? This feeling of entrapment heightened his disdain for societal pressures as he grew to be appalled at the state of the world: …show more content…
Being free of social restrictions allows Chris to act in the most uninhibited and arguably the purest manner. In the wild, no law matters, no person matters. McCandless enjoyed what few people have: total sovereignty over oneself. Congress passed new laws and societal norms shifted but Chris was blissfully detached from what he viewed as distractions from real living. No one could tell him how to act or punish him if he refused. In this sense McCandless did achieve what he set out to do, even if it ended in his demise. His last message read: “I have had a happy life and thank the lord. Goodbye and may God bless all” (199). Even in the face of death, Chris felt content with the path he set down and knew that he would become the ultimate testament to the transcendental philosophy. Some may argue that from Thoreau’s view, Chris failed in his goal: “I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours” “Walden,” but seeing how he felt about his life when the end finally came shows that Chris did not necessarily desert his mission. Who else can decide if a life was well-lived other than the one living it? He made his choices and found solace in the complete unchangeability of his past. Alone in the wild, a man becomes equal to animals and plants and whatever else resides in nature. It can be humbling to live not as a conqueror of Earth but as a child nourished by it. This viewpoint, no doubt influenced by Emerson and Thoreau, allowed McCandless to feel a great awe of the world around him. One of Emerson’s most famous lines from his “Nature”, was a clear exposure of mankind's shunning of the very things our ancestors worshipped: “If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and
As portrayed in the film, Into the Wild, Chris McCandless hates society. In one particular scene, Chris starts yelling about “society” and how it is bad when he is telling Wayne about his trip to Alaska. In Ralph Waldo Emerson’s poem, Self-Reliance, it says “Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, b...
Chris's disposition is elicited by other characters' attitudes toward him. This method of educating the audience allows us to see "the true Chris McCandless" by recounting his interactions with and behavior toward the people he meets on his Emerson-inspired journey to self-reliance. The manner in which Krakau...
...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.
To begin with, McCandless did not present the slightest interest in religion. An issue is created in the claim that McCandless is a true transcendentalist due to the fact that religion was a large portion of the transcendental movement. Transcendentalists believed that there is a unity between nature and God; That one may discover God through immersing themselves in nature. They also held the belief that God is present in each individual; That humans as a whole form God because a fragment of Him is within each human being. Christopher McCandless did not share these beliefs. In reality, McCandless was arrogant and self-important. He felt inferior to nothing and superior to everything. He did not believe that Go...
Chris McCandless, a man who went into the wilderness and died in a bus, in the cold wilderness of Alaska, after living 114 days in the Alaska cold. Though, before ending up in Alaska Chris was constantly on the move. Yet he somehow was able to meet people and befriend them. Such people were Wayne Westerberg, Jan Burres, her boyfriend Bob and finally Ronald Franz. In the end, of meeting all these people, Chris ended up leaving such a strong impression on each of them. Though why did Chris McCandless leave such a strong impression on them? Well, in the book “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer, one can read how Chris influenced people, encouraged them, how people thought he was a hard worker that lived out his own beliefs and there are many more reasons
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...
... 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.
The distinction between whether an individual is to be considered a hero or a coward lies in their death. The difference is the impact, and the impact differs for a hero than a coward. When a hero dies, the magnitude of the impact on society is greater as society reflects on all the positive achievements that have been accomplished. Their death is more of a rebirth of a soul, the rebirth of hope. However, a coward dies many times before their actual death. The mistakes and tragic falls are considered to be these multiple deaths. “The valiant never taste of death but once”, a quote said by William Shakespeare. Throughout the novel of Into the Wild by Jon Krakeur, Chris McCandless is thought to be a courageous hero by many. However, it is not recalled for a courageous person to take on the role of a wanderlust knowing the result is highly fatal. Walt and Billie McCandless, Chris’s parents, have been making funeral arrangements for the last two days, but in a way, they have been making funeral arrangements for the last two years. That is how long it has been since they have seen their son. This tragedy has no one to blame, except for the young man himself. Chris ran away from facing all that was bothering him. It is understandable to feel immense pressure in life sometimes however, the way he went about dealing with this pressure broke the hearts of his parents and his loved ones and got himself killed. Chris Mccandless is to be considered a selfish coward because of the choices he made in dealing with the problems he had to deal with in his life.
Chris McCandless, as described in John Krakauer’s book “Into the Wild,” endured many grueling tasks and hardships throughout his odyssey in the wild, but ultimately died of starvation and exposure from the elements. What would have happened if Chris survived and came back to society? If Chris changed his thought’s on how society worked, he might still be here with us today,but it would be difficult to imagine him changing his mind. During his time in the wild, Chris became inspired or enlightened by being alone. If he came back to society, he would be disappointed just like he was before. Quoting from Chris’s journal, Krakauer writes that “[t]o get an ID and a job feels extremely uncomfortable in society now [to chris] and must return to the road
Chris McCandless does not wish to follow defined life structure that society enforces to simply be alive, instead, he chooses to take a seek a path to live a life with purpose. Such an eagerness to seek detachment from what is expected by society, is enforced by not only McCandless but also Thoreau. A primary factor resembling this, is McCandless’ view that many people “live within unhappy circumstances...yet will not change…they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism...damaging to the adventurous spirit(40).” The detesting tone risen through the confliction of “unhappy circumstances” and “damage,” to “safety, conformity and conservation,” emphasis his will to separate from a lifestyle lacking change. This is done
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...
...se, McCandless replies, “Hell no…how I feel myself is none of the government’s business” (Krakauer 6). With this statement, Chris demonstrates that he is the ultimate non-conformist, that he is an individualist. “He needed his solitude at times, but he wasn’t a hermit. He did a lot of socializing. Sometimes I think it was like he was storing up company for the times when he knew nobody would be around” (Krakauer 45). With that said, Chris understood the importance of being his own person, with his own ideas and views and his own way of thinking so that others could not manipulate him along the way. He realized that the only way for him to find his own freedom and peace was to be self-centered and to put himself before others without others polluting his sense of existence.
In some part of everyone’s life, there originates a time where one starts to make decisions on their own. This point in someone’s life varies, but no matter what time it comes in your life there is always this realization that you have to become independent. Chris McCandless was someone who realized this, but unlike most people, he took this involvement to the extreme and it became something that he would not return home from. In college, McCandless was mostly separated from everyone. He didn’t have many friends, and was known by many as being a strange person. He was also brought up from a torn apart family. His father had a son besides him in a previous relationship. In Chris’s life, he was never really shown how to be independent. This is what urged him to take a trip to Alaska to survive on his own.
A trait that CHris McCandless showed was isolation, McCandless would always isolate himself from the world. On page 103 there is a quote that says “There was no one around, neither family nor people whose judgment you respected.”
One of the most famous transcendentalists during the 1800’s was Ralph Waldo Emerson. In his essay Self Reliance, he reminds his readers to “Trust thyself: Every heart vibrates to that iron string”(186). He is telling his readers to trust what they believe in and not follow what everyone else is saying because every person is unique and has different ideal ways of life and goals in mind. This idea very much relates to the life of Chris McCandless. Like the transcendentalists, he strays away from what society expects of him, follows his own footsteps, is very reserved in nature, and keeps to himself for the most part. These traits of him help to identity him as a modern day transcendentalist.