Obligation to Family The book “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer is a story about a man by the name of Chris McCandless. He is a man who grew up in a DC suburb, graduated college and decides to change the ways of his life. He journeys across the country, and finds his way to Alaska. His means are to leave the material lifestyle and become at one with nature. During Chris’s adventure he seems to neglect all communication with his family and over look the fact that they care about his health and future. After Chris graduated high school he traveled the country and seldom kept in touch with his family. After being on the road for weeks Chris finally returned home, but within the next couple of days he would be …show more content…
While Chris traveled the country he stopped in different towns and tried to work for some extra traveling cash. He came across a town in South Dakota called Carthage. He worked for a man by the name of Wayne Westerburg. Chris went by his new name Alex and Westerburg comes to find out, Alex’s real name is Chris McCandless. Westerburg says, “He never explained why he changed his name…From the things he said, you could tell that something wasn’t right between him and his family…” By Westerburg stating this it is safe to say that other people can see the difficult relationship Chris has with his family. During Chris’s journey he never really opens up to anyone about his family. He doesn’t really show any affection towards them and if any it would be toward his sister Carnie. He writes in a letter to her stating that he is going to divorce his parents. The last time his parents saw him was after his graduation. Chris told his parents “ I think I’m going to disappear for a while” and that is the last they ever heard of him again. Chris McCandless to me was a very intelligent but stubborn man. He didn’t care about how his family felt. All along his quest to the stampede trail Chris was kind to strangers and others but neglected the fact that his family back home worried about him. In the end Chris became at one with nature but realized that his surroundings (meaning family
No individual had the same family background and early experiences in their lives. Each individual also had their own personalities. Chris McCandless was a young and successful college graduate with a job and had money. Oddly, he decided to disappear in response to his father’s misjudgment, giving away his money and overall, became homeless. McCandless could no longer
After that accident, Chris realized that what he was doing was destroying his life. He didn’t have a relationship with his children and his wife didn’t talk to him. The drug addict went to a rehabilitation
“Their fraudulent marriage and our father's denial of his other son was, for Chris, a murder of every day's truth. He felt his whole life turn, like a river suddenly reversing the direction of its flow, suddenly running uphill. These revelations struck at the core of Chris' sense of identity. They made his entire childhood seem like fiction.” page 103 The way chris found his life to be nothing but fiction made it hard for him to want ot stay around with his family and to do things a normal person
In Chris’s view he thought money was evil and that is what destroyed his family, it would make his father crazy and abuse his mother. Which Chris was disgusted by. By thinking the simple life was a better fit for Chris. After college he left his apartment and told his landlord to forward his letters till the end of July when he wanted an early start before his parents discovered his plans. McCandless abandoned his car after the flood it was caught in and the fact that it wouldn’t start up, it was very hard for him to loose his car because that was one of the last things he had from his past life.
If his parents had a more normal and peaceful relationship, the outcomes would not have been so extreme. For example, having a stable family creates a healthier, more open and secure environment. Instead, Chris started to develop a distant relationship with his parents because of one of the choices the dad made, maintained two relationships. In addition, when a family relationship is in a chaotic stage, it will affect how the person treats other people. The person would be more distant, distrustful, self-sufficient, etc. That is, what Chris ended up to be when he decided to
Chris McCandless was possessed by a nomadic existence and was trying to share his principle of life to his friend by telling that the truth about life was to explore the nature. Chris McCandless's last letter to Wayne revealed his true passion of nature. "This is the last you shall hear from me...I now walk into the wild"(pg 69). Some people concluded that it was Chris McCandless's suicide letter. However, in my opinion, Chris McCandless was just a victim of his own ego, pride and confidence that made him to neglect basic precautions that keep one person alive. He was controlled by his own delusions and that made him eager to test himself into strenuousness which proved fatal to him.
Into the Wild, written by Jon Krakauer, is a memoir about how living in the wilderness and how Chris McCandless lived nearly two years in the wild. Throughout the novel, Krakauer relates Chris’ adventures to his own experience in mountain climbing and living on his own. This is not your typical memoir where the author tells a story about their lives. Jon Krakauer is not the main character; however he tells a story of this boy who leaves his well-developed family for no apparent reason. But not only does he tell Chris’ story, he tells his own by fusing them altogether.
Moving out is a big step for the parents and the kids as well. But once their kids move out, their parents are no longer able to know when and where their kids are. Chris had no phone and only sent letters to his parents. When they hadn’t heard from him in awhile they decided to drive to Atlanta and surprise him. But the surprise was that Chris had moved out
This explains part of his reasoning for breaking from society. He wanted to experience the unknown. He did not want to be safe, and he was allowed to achieve this because of his persistence and his locked-on mindset. Chris knew exactly what he wanted and he sacrificed literally everything that he had to do so. That is the American Dream.
Much of the human race live their lives in accordance to what society sees as acceptable, but Christopher McCandless disregards societal norms in the novel Into the Wild. Within the novel, Jon Krakauer explores the story of Christopher McCandless’s journey to Alaska and investigates the events leading up to his death. Krakauer tells the story concerning McCandless’s life in a fashion that reveals a truth about nonconformity. Krakauer sends a message to common readers that nonconformity is not possible and the only way to survive the world we live in is to conform to our surroundings. Jon Krakauer express’s his ideals on nonconformity within Into the Wild through his non-chronological organizational structure, the use of logical reasoning,
Into the Wild, written by John Krakauer tells of a young man named Chris McCandless who 1deserted his college degree and all his worldly possessions in favor of a primitive transient life in the wilderness. Krakauer first told the story of Chris in an article in Outside Magazine, but went on to write a thorough book, which encompasses his life in the hopes to explain what caused him to venture off alone into the wild. McCandless’ story soon became a national phenomenon, and had many people questioning why a “young man from a well-to-do East Coast family [would] hitchhike to Alaska” (Krakauer i). Chris comes from an affluent household and has parents that strived to create a desirable life for him and his sister. As Chris grows up, he
“On the northern margin of the Alaska Range, just before the hulking ramparts of Mt. McKinley and its satellites surrender to the low Kantishna plain, a series of lesser ridges, known as the Outer Range, sprawls across the flats like a rumpled blanket on an unmade bed”(Krakauer 9). Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer is true story based around Chris Mccandless. Chris ultimilty left normal society and everything he owned to go on a road trip around the country and end up in Alaska. Here in Alaska he meet his end in the harsh winter. In Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, Chris McCandless believes that self-reliance is key to survival, while Ralph Waldo Emerson also believes this based on his work “Self-Reliance”.
With a silent yet inescapable list of expectations, the pressure of society, and his damaged parents, one could believe that the adventure he embarked on was a way to remove himself from his destructive environment. However Chris had never experienced independence in his life. He felt separated from everyone with few friends and a well-off family that was tragically broken, and
After one graduates from college; there are several things that happen. Generally people go out and find a job and become useful to society. They go out and find a nice girl to marry and have children. Life becomes more or less systematic and repetitive. Chris gave up all of these to chase a wild dream that inevitably led to his death. Chris was a selfish child. He exhibited many of the
Another way is because the author wanted his novel to describe the life of Chris in a unique way without him feeling judged from the mistakes he did while on his journey in Alaska, because he’s life did end in tragedy.