Chris Mccandless In The Wild, By Chris Mccandless

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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.

When it comes to how Krakauer felt about McCandless, he had a lot of different feelings. He states, "Although he was rash, untutored in the ways of the backcountry, and incautious to the point of foolhardiness, he wasn't incompetent- he wouldn't have lasted 113 days if he were. And he wasn't a nutcase, he wasn't a sociopath, he wasn't an outcast. McCandless was something else- although precisely what is hard to say. A pilgrim, perhaps” (Page 90). Krakauer is stating from what he identifies of McCandless, he is a normal individual, maybe even bright. Many people commented that McCandless had a death request traveling into the wilderness without knowledge. However, Krakauer had an involvement very alike and can communicate to us about McCandless and his hunger for adventure.

There are many other quotes that show how Krakauer feels but another one that stuck out to me was, “it would be easy to stereotype Christopher McCandless as a...

... middle of paper ...

...igure. He may have been naive, but he was not an incompetent fool.

In conclusion, based on the information collected by Krakauer, he believes that McCandless was a unique and determined individual. I agree with this statement 100%. Not many people attempt the wild and unwise journey McCandless did. When taking this risk it cost him his life. I believe that Christopher McCandless was not going to change for anyone. I think Krakauer understood McCandless and his difficult temperament. "...But Christopher Johnson McCandless came into the world with unusual gifts and a will not easily deflected from its trajectory" (Page 110). This final quote is one that explained McCandless in one little sentence. He was a human being who was determined to do something and he went after what he wanted.

Work Cited

Krakauer, Jon. Into the Wild. New York: Anchor, 1997. Print.

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