Into The Wild Chris Mccandless Analysis

Passage: “The only difference is that McCandless ended up dead with the story of his dumbassedness splashed across media. His ignorance, which could have been cured by a USGS quadrant and a Boy Scout manual, is what killed him. And while I feel bad for his parents Such willful ignorance…amounts to disrespect for the land, and paradoxically demonstrates the same sort of arrogance that resulted in Exxon Valdez spill just another case of underprepared, overconfident men bumbling around out there and screwing up because they lacked the requisite humility. ” (Krakauer 72).

(R) After publicizing McCandless death, many began criticizing McCandless saying that his death was a result of his intentional ignorance. They perceived him as kook. McCandless
Chris felt constrained by societies laws and obligations and believed that Governments had no place in people’s personal lives. Chris’s hatred towards the government, society, and their rules can be connected to the principles of counter culture during the 1960’s. Members of counterculture were referred to as hippies. Both Chris and the Hippies where firm believers of free expression. Chris similar to the hippies often protested the government, rejected the need to conform to society or authorities, and believed in living for him rather than others. Chris like many other followers of counterculture believed that in the wild there were no rules and that one had absolute freedom. Both Hippies and Chris shared the desire for freedom, and sought refuge for their freedom in the hands of
The Poem starts with a metaphor comparing death to a fierce meadowlark, a grassland bird. The second line I believe talks about how one can be more than just gods wonder, muscle and bones, by overcoming one’s weakness’s. The mountain in the third line I believe can be attributed to Chris as its insolent quiet had brought haters and admirers just as his disappearance had brought hatred and grievance from others and happiness from himself, and like how the mountains aren’t softened or troubled by its admirers and haters, despite these feelings of hatred or admiration people had against his ideas and actions Chris refused to change them and never regretted it even after death. This poem develops the character of Chris McCandless and reveals a lot about his death. First of the complexity of the poem and previous background signifies his Chris McCandless was a boy who wanted to live for himself and didn’t want to be like the rest of his society. He acknowledges, through the poem, that by disappearing into the arms of nature he has hurt many people by leaving them. Chris knowing the consequences went through with his actions and didn’t repent them. By including this excerpt from one of Chris’s books, Krakauer emphasizes as a conclusion and clarification that Chris McCandless wasn’t a mentally ill, dumb or arrogant, but was simply an intelligent boy who died doing what he loved,