The day is unlike any other. The mail has come and lying at the bottom of the stack is the favored Outside magazine. The headline reads, “Exclusive Report: Lost in the Wild.” The cover speaks of a twenty four year old boy who “walked off into America’s Last Frontier hoping to make sense of his life.” The monotony of the ordinary day has now vanished from thought as Jon Krakauer’s captivating article runs through the mind like gasoline to an engine. The article is not soon forgotten, and the book Into the Wild is happened upon three years later. The book relates the full story of Christopher Johnson McCandless and how he left his family and friends after graduating college in order to find himself. Krakauer based the book off of his article …show more content…
This acknowledgement is based on assumption, but it is very sound assumption. No one truly knows how Chris McCandless died. Krakauer thinks that McCandless’ cause of death was possibly a mold known as R. leguminicola which may have contaminated his seeds. Out of all the possible causes of death, this cause seems to be the most plausible. If Krakauer’s thought was the cause of McCandless’ death, it would prove that McCandless was not “a reckless idiot” (iii). Rather it shows that “McCandless simply had the misfortune to eat moldy seeds” (194). This also means that “he didn’t carelessly confuse one species with another” and that “the guy wasn’t quite as reckless or incompetent as he [had] been made out to be” (194). Other theories as to how McCandless died include the possibility of eating a poisonous potato plant or even the toxicity from a wild plant’s seeds. The fact that makes Krakauer’s idea the most plausible is he is able to go through each of the theories and logically assess the given facts until he has made it seem as if that particular theory was not even possible to begin with. All of the other theories that the reader is presented with have one thing in common. In order to be true, they require that McCandless be “a reckless idiot” (iii). However, Krakauer breaks down every other plausible death theory until there is only one left. Coincidentally it is the only theory that, if true, would prove that McCandless was
These anecdotes serve as contrasts to Chris’ adventures. Many of the other individuals are described as foolish, arrogant, or mentally imbalanced. Krakauer makes it very obvious that he does not believe that their negative traits applied to McCandless in any way. At the end of the chapter he goes as far as to explicitly state, “... unlike Waterman, McCandless wasn’t mentally ill. And unlike McCunn, he didn’t go into the bush assuming someone would automatically appear to save his bacon before he came to grief. McCandless didn’t conform particularly well to the bush-casualty stereotype. 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.” (85) This is one of the most blatant statements of the author’s true thoughts on Christopher McCandless and for good reason. Krakauer has just expounded the stories of some of Alaska’s worst wilderness casualties and he wants it to be flawlessly clear that the purpose of these anecdotes is to delve into a discussion about how Chris wasn’t just a casualty or a rebel or a fool
Throughout Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, there are many details that help give the reader a deeper, more profound, meaning of the book's intended purpose. Krakauer is one of the most renowned American writers, publishing many books focused specifically focused on nature, and people’s struggles in nature. Through much of the book, Krakauer incorporates many examples of diction and imagery to help the reader grasp the essence of the book. By using a wide range of literary techniques, Krakauer is able to communicate the events that transpired throughout the book.
In Jon Krakauer's novel Into the Wild, the main character, Chris McCandless, seeks nature so that he can find a sense of belonging and the true meaning of who he is. However, it is the essence of nature that eventually takes his life away from him. At the end of his life, he is discovers his purpose and need of other people. After Chris McCandless death in Alaska, Krakauer wrote Into the Wild to reflect on the journey that McCandless makes. Krakauer protrays McCandless as a young man who is reckless, selfish, and arrogant, but at the same time, intelligent, determined, independent, and charismatic. Along with the irony that occurs in nature, these characteristics are the several factors that contribute to McCandless death.
Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer, is the story of a young man, Chris Mccandless who was going in the right direction. He had finished college and had a family who loved him, somehow he took a major detour that landed him dead in Alaska. Chris Mccandless shaped his identity through his actions, interests, values and beliefs.
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.
In Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer explores the human fascination with the purpose of life and nature. Krakauer documents the life and death of Chris McCandless, a young man that embarked on an Odyssey in the Alaskan wilderness. Like many people, McCandless believed that he could give his life meaning by pursuing a relationship with nature. He also believed that rejecting human relationships, abandoning his materialistic ways, and purchasing a book about wildlife would strengthen his relationship with nature. However, after spending several months enduring the extreme conditions of the Alaskan wilderness, McCandless’ beliefs begin to work against him. He then accepts that he needs humans, cannot escape materialism, and can
The gripping tale of a young man who leaves all that he has and goes to live amidst the natural world, Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer showcases the two years Christopher McCandless had spent journeying throughout the United States before his unfortunate death. After graduating from Emory University in 1990, McCandless disconnected with all of his past relations and abandoned the majority of his possessions. McCandless’ decisions either seem extremely unwise or extremely courageous. He had a comfortable life with few worries yet he still chose to toss it all away and venture into unknown territories. What many wonder is why he would do such an irrational thing. Maybe, McCandless’ was simply trying to run away from his perception of reality.
In Jon Krakauer’s book, Into the Wild, he goes on to tell a story about a young man’s journey to find himself. Chris Mccandless, is determined to find himself despite that he is not fully prepared in the Alaskan wilderness. The way Krakauer writes Into the Wild is an adventure itself because even though we are fully aware of the ending, he gives a rich story on how Christopher found himself there.
The desire to be at one with nature sometimes becomes apparent within some of us. Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer highlights the fact that Chris McCandless is a reckless fool and a narcissist due to his carelessness, ignorance, and incompetence.
Jon Krakauer’s novel, Into the Wild, is telling the story of a young adventurer named Christopher McCandless. His disturbing past led him into the wild away from society. Although, his desire to abandon society led to his death. In Into the Wild , Jon Krakauer characterizes Christopher McCandless as a rebel and wonderlust.
Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, describes the adventure of Christopher McCandless, a young man that ventured into the wilderness of Alaska hoping to find himself and the meaning of life. He undergoes his dangerous journey because he was persuade by of writers like Henry D. Thoreau, who believe it is was best to get farther away from the mainstreams of life. McCandless’ wild adventure was supposed to lead him towards personal growth but instead resulted in his death caused by his unpreparedness towards the atrocity nature.
Krakauer uses research about the life of McCandless in order to establish his ethos and convey his thesis of the novel. When Krakauer presents the information concerning McCandless’s death, he quotes directly from the moose hunters who found him dead and describes the exact setting of the situation. Krakauer beings by explaining the scene at which the moose hunters found him, “A few hundred yards beyond the river the trail disappeared” (Krakauer 12). Krakaurer’s use of description enables readers to visualize the scene better and create a major sense of trust between the author and reader. Krakauer then imbeds a quote directly from the moose hunters that found McCandless’s body who explains that there was “a real bad smell from inside” (Krakauer12). Appealing to the reader’s sense of smell, and also using the perspective of the exact people that found McCandless’s body, establishes a more ethical appeal to the audiences trust in the information the author is presenting. Also, Krakauer cites an exact note found on the bus where McCandless was discovered which states that he is “Near death” (Krakauer 12). The note displayed in the text is written in a different font, implying that the proceeding text is written by a different author, and is also signed by McCandless himself. The research Krakauer did is directly shown here because of his factual evidence. The use of factual information from the scene of the death provides a
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
Author V.S. Naipaul once said, “What I felt was, if you spend your life just writing fiction, you are going to falsify your material. I thought nonfiction gave one a chance to explore the world, the other world, the world that one didn’t know fully.” John Krakauer’s Into the Wild is a biography that covers a man’s attempt to live life off the grid and stray from the societal norms of mid nineties America in order to achieve enlightenment. Throughout the story, the readers follow Chris McCandless as he travels across the country, discovers new locations, and encounters new experiences in search of happiness, peace, and solitude. As the reader approaches the middle of the story, they realize an important relationship beginning to manifest between
Jon Krakauer’s odyssey Into the Wild follows Christopher McCandless through his last year of his life traversing the North American frontier. As a biography based on McCandless’ journals and interviews, much of the details of Chris’ journeys are speculated. Yet, Krakauer succeeds in developing the enigma of Christopher McCandless, or as he would be immortalized in the bus on the Stampede Trail, Alexander Supertramp, in a way that tugs at the buried wanderer inside of everyone.