How Does Chris Mccandless Show Superficiality

Nicole Trindade
Honors English 3
Mrs. Maloney

Into the Wild Responses
3. When Chris McCandless calls the people “Plastic People,” I believe he was referring to their superficiality. Chris wanted to get out of what he saw as too artificial. In John Green’s book, Paper Towns, Margo Roth Spiegelman, the main character’s curiosity and friend, talks about how a “paper town” to her is a superficial place, and artificial. Fake and uniform, too much like every other town around it. I think Chris is trying to say the same thing. People don’t often notice how similar they are. All working toward the same goal and desiring the same things. He leaves society because he is tired with what the world has become: materialistic and false. People spend too
Everyone has an obligation to be kind and compassionate to a certain degree, but they also have their limits. McCandless simply exceeded his limit, and decided to do something for himself for once. I think that Chris could have communicated better with his parents, but all in all, he made a decision to better himself; to make him happier. Hurting his parents was in no way intentional, though I doubt he would have regretted it too much, had he known. He dealt with a lot with his parents and eventually it got to him, and he didn’t want to take anymore. As McCandless progressed on his journey, as he learned more about himself, the odds are that his patience and compassion grew. Perhaps, had he not died in Alaska, when he returned he would be able to talk to his parents and settle any differences he had with his father with a clear mind and refreshed
I can’t really say if safety is more important to me or if adventure and freedom is. I suppose it would depend on the situation. It would depend on the adventure, on how much freedom was at hand, and what the dangers were. I have always been the kind of person to enjoy my comfort zone; my bubble of protection, but it can only do so much for me. One day, I’ll be asked to push my limits, or I could go ahead and push my own limits ahead of time, and on my own terms. There’s so much that could happen on an adventure: the good, the bad, the boring, the dangerous, and many more. Maybe if the adventure were something that didn’t threaten my safety, I might take it on. Now that I think about it, I think I do value safety a little bit more. I’m never the kind of person to put myself in any sort of risk, but more importantly, the safety I value is that of my family and friends. If I were to go on any time of adventure, I would need to know for certain that my family and friends were in no risk, and I would make sure I didn’t hurt them, like I saw Chris did with his family. I could never hurt them or my friends, and I would try not to make certain careless mistakes McCandless did. Overall, I think I would value a good adventure and some freedom for once, as long as those around me were safe. I’m always up for an adventure, and doing things differently can always be