Into the Wild

Into the wild by John Krakauer Krakauer uses the structure, genres, the stories of other adventures, and the interviews to develop the theme of the pursuit of happiness. The author demonstrates this by explaining that even though Chris had everything he could need in the structured world that he lived in, he goes off into the wild to find happiness within himself. Krakauer organizes the story in an unusual fashion. The book begins to describe Chris’s death and where he was found. The fact that Chris died isn’t the point of his story. It’s simply about him going off by himself and all the speed bumps he encounters, along with the different types of people he meets. His motive to this journey was to find genuine enlightenment. Starting with Chris’s death, the story circles back to the beginning of his life and all the previous events that built up to his expedition. The author includes several different stories of other people that set off on these types of adventures. Throughout the middle of the book, the author includes the stories of several people that were also similar to Chris’s story. In the beginning of each chapter the author includes epigrams that generally foreshadow what is going to happen in the chapter, or have a connection as to what the chapter is about. In chapter 1, it starts with a picture of map and a postcard Chris sent. The purpose of this is to show that Chris lost connection to society. Then in chapter 9, there was a map of Navajo followed by 2 epigrams. The purpose of the map is Everett’s trail and where he disappeared. The first epigram was a letter to his brother and it shows that he doesn’t like civilization. The second epigram is Wallace talking about Everett’s journey. Then in the chapter, the author introduces Everett. Last is the epilogue. There’s an epigram by Edward Wimper and the second epigrams shows that Chris didn’t quite understand what love is. He questions who and when he was supposed to love, and then it talks