Chris Mccandless Return To The Wild Analysis

I believe that Chris McCandless did live out Thoreau’s words due to the fact that McCandless lived a life in search of himself as well as to find the true meaning of life. Growing up McCandless was a protector and a brother to Carine McCandless. McCandless would protect Carine, from their parents, whenever tension rose in the house. McCandless and Carine had a very close bond, due to the physical and verbal abuse presented in the house between their parents (Return to the Wild). McCandless never felt like home was a place to be. Being raised in a household of pain and abuse is hard for any child to endure, as it was for McCandless and Carine. Due to all the violence presented in the house, McCandless began to deceive his father for his existence

and his traumatized past. No matter what McCandless’s parents tried to fix the skewed relationship, nothing seemed to work. This lead McCandless to find a home in nature. A place he viewed as peaceful, and where he could find the answers to life.

This correlates well with Thoreau’s words because the protagonist in Walden walked into nature to find the true meaning of life, just as McCandless did. Secondly, McCandless had always envisioned himself living off the land of Alaska. As a friend of McCandless, Jane Burres states,“‘he told us about his ‘great Alaskan odyssey’...But he was really excited about it. Couldn’t stop talking about the trip’” (Krakauer 45). McCandless had always wanted to go to Alaska and lived off its lands. This trip meant everything to McCandless because it meant that he could get away from the evils of civilization and come to peace with himself. To many people, the idea of isolation is a terrifying thought but to McCandless, it was a peace of freedom. There was nothing tying him down in Alaska, only a place to reflect upon oneself and find the true meaning of life no matter the challenges. In Thoreau’s words, “to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms”, essentially that is what McCandless wants to achieve by living off the lands of Alaska. McCandless went into the wilderness of Alaska with a ten-pound bag of rice, a pair of cheap hiking boots and a .22 caliber (Krakauer

5). McCandless might have little to no common sense, which led him to pack little to insufficient care. However, by doing so, McCandless was able to live off the land and understand true nature of the wilderness. McCandless was very self-disciplined and would also not accept any items or gear from people due to a principle which he abides by showing how “sturdily and Spartan-like” McCandless was. On August 19, 1992, McCandless past away due to starvation in Alaska. McCandless had blamed his inevitable demise on potato seeds in which he wrote in a book on July 30. McCandless had survived 114 days in the wilderness of Alaska (Krauer 189). Life hit McCandless hard in the face when he suffered greatly due to starvation. Even though McCandless died in search of himself and the meaning of life, he did, in fact, lived out Thoreau’s words.