Chris McCandless and Jon both had something in common that could have inspired Jon to write the book. They both had a huge love for nature, in fact in 1974 Jon had travelled to Alaska. Jon strangely actually started to build a bond with Chris passing after his death "I identify with him a lot, …show more content…
and it's a sad story. I went back to the bus for the third time last September. I've become quite good friends with his family, we have sort of this weird bond." (Jon Krakauer). Many people can agree that a strong drive for him to write this story was the relationship he had with nature. He wrote this to find out and explain what actually happened to Chris McCandless and how he ended up in the bus. He also wanted to see if in a sense if he could get into Chris’s mind and see if he could figure out his motive for doing this. “In trying to understand McCandless, I inevitably came to reflect on…the grip wilderness has on the American imagination, the allure high-risk activities hold for young men of a certain mind, [and] the complicated, highly charged bond that exists between fathers and sons.” (Krakauer) Jon Krakauer intention was to motivate young readers and shed light on society's materialism and doing what makes them happy, in order to justify Chris’s actions. “Make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. ” (Jon Krakauer)
A significant point that the author shows is Chris continuous search for ultimate freedom.
He wants to be free and independent from people's rules and the authority people always seem to have over him. "McCandless was thrilled to be on his way north, and he was relieved as well—relieved that he had again evaded the impending threat of human intimacy, of friendship, and all the messy emotional baggage that comes with it. He had fled the claustrophobic confines of his family. He’d successfully kept Jan Burres and Wayne Westerberg at arm’s length, flitting out of their lives before anything was expected of him. And now he’d slipped painlessly out of Ron Franz’s life as well on.”(Krakauer) This shows Chris constant want for intimacy he didn't contact his sister for 2 years even though they were extremely close. During those years he makes relationships with people but he never get really close with them he always leaves room to avoid getting to intimate. Krakauer justifies Chris action by saying complete isolation was the only way for him to achieve the freedom that he wants. “He always wore shoes without socks- just plain couldn't stand to wear socks. But McDonald's has a rule that employees have to wear appropriate footwear at all times. This means shoes and socks. Chris would with the rule, but as soon as his shift was over bang!- the first thing he’d do is peel those socks off… kind of like a statement yo let us now we didn’t own him, I guess” (McDonald's coworker) Jon …show more content…
provided examples like this throughout the novel to prove his point and justify Chris actions.
Jon purpose for writing the novel also could have been to demonstrate how people may be pushed over the edge by our materialistic society and in order to discover his/her true identity, they might need a break.
And for Chris it was by going back to nature where your status is not important. You will not be judged when you are in the wild. This trip changes Chris's perspective on life.“The trip was to be an odyssey in the fullest sense of the word, an epic journey that would change everything.” (Jon) Jon continues to justify Chris’s actions by blaming society for their values and their impact. This shows us the the purpose of Jon writing this was not only to shed light on Chris life but to urge change with the way our society affects people, with their materialistic, controlling, and demanding ways. He also uses this example as a way to show the reader that maybe they should consider taking a break from life as well. When reading the story the reader starts to question their existence as well as examining a part of our own sense of
who we are and what makes us unique. This just shows Jon’s way to indirectly hint towards Chris wat to just fit into society. His intended audience is young adults, which many of them try many things to be accepted into society.“Seven weeks after the body of his son turned up in Alaska wrapped in a blue sleeping bag that Billie had sewn for Chris from a kit, Walt studies a sailboat scudding beneath the window of his waterfront townhouse. ‘How is it,’ he wonders aloud as he gazes blankly across Chesapeake Bay, ‘that a kid with so much compassion could cause his parents so much pain?” (Jon) This shows us that many people thought of Chris as a compassionate man and were shocked by his risky behavior and though it was selfish. “ “It is easy, when you are young, to believe that what you desire is no less than what you deserve, to assume that if you want something badly enough, it is your God-given right to have it. When I decided to go to Alaska that April, like Chris McCandless, I was a raw youth who mistook passion for insight and acted according to an obscure, gap-ridden logic. I thought climbing the Devils Thumb would fix all that was wrong with my life. In the end, of course, it changed almost nothing. But I came to appreciate that mountains make poor receptacles for dreams. And I lived to tell my tale.” (Jon) After hearing about his death many people felt that it was due to his immaturity. Many people think that if had survived he would have grown up to be more responsible and built closer relationships with people. This also deals with society role in peer pressure and how people always feel the need to change to fit in. In conclusion, Jon wrote this book to give insight on issues with society. One could even claim that Jon felt that he didn’t fit in with today's society and felt that nature helped him escape his problems. Jon wrote this story because of the similar passion they both share and how close this was to him. He did intensive research to see if he could get into the mind on Chris and what he was thinking. Jon clearly brought to light the issues of peer pressure and social acceptance. Many people considered Chris risky behaviors as childish and immature. But the author seems like a firm believer that Chris did this to escape all the pressure from his parents and society. Even though we will never be able to fully get in the mind of Chris to see what he was thinking, Jon does a good job of going over his life prior to his death and gathering information from people who had interactions with him.