Into The Wild Chris Mccandless Character Analysis

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer is about a young man named Chris McCandless who left his old life behind to hitchhike across America. He burned the money in his pockets and abandoned his car in the desert. Krakauer tells the story of Chris’s journey to Alaska where he was found dead in an abandoned bus, and much more. Chris McCandless’s story is one of courage and passion; however, it also gives the impression that he was irresponsible and ungrateful. He had many character traits that one would both admire and detest.

Throughout some parts of the book, Chris handled things poorly. He was stubborn, ungrateful and stupid. An example of this is how he acted during the situation with his parents when Krakauer reveals Mr. McCandless’s secret love affair. Despite the fact that his
parents worked through it themselves in order to protect Chris and his siblings, Chris’s frustration kept building up inside of him when he heard the news. His mother recalls, “He seemed mad at us more often, and he became more withdrawn…” (Krakauer 121). He failed to remember that they worked extremely hard to give him a prosperous life. He left without writing them at all, or letting them know he was okay, but yet he wrote to a lot of friends he met along the way. Walt McCandless, Chris’s father, wonders, “How is it that a kid with so much compassion could cause his parents so much pain?” (Krakauer 104). An example of his stupidity is that Chris believed he was special compared to everyone else, like he could do anything without having to face the consequences. Walt describes him as “…fearless, even when he was little. He didn’t think the odds applied to him. We were always trying to pull him away from the edge” (Krakauer 109). This fearlessness and stupidity is what got Chris killed. In the novel it is revealed, “Starvation was posited as the most probable cause of death” (Krakauer 4). He wasn’t smart about not taking people’s clothes, food, or money. He would work for just enough money to buy a bag of rice and some equipment only. Before he passed away he put a note on the door of the bus he found shelter in hoping someone would help him. What he wrote indicates that he realized he should have been more cautious in order to survive. It is heartbreaking to read because his death could have been prevented. He pleads, “…I NEED YOUR HELP. I AM INJURED, NEAR DEATH, AND TOO WEAK TO HIKE OUT OF HERE. I AM ALL ALONE, THIS IS NO JOKE. IN THE NAME OF GOD, PLEASE REMAIN TO SAVE ME…” (Krakauer 12).

On the flip side, Chris McCandless was a very passionate human being.
He loved nature and was determined to complete his journey no matter what obstacles came along. He had a gift, which was the ability to find beauty in everything he saw out west. At a very young age, world hunger, and other huge problems, were on his list of things to put an end too. He wasn’t like most young people, consumed with a life of partying and drugs. Instead he thought about all the evil and hatred in the world, and imagined himself, “…running against the forces of darkness…” (Krakauer 112). One of his friends from high school said, “You aren’t supposed to think about heavy-duty stuff in high school. But I did, and he did, too…” (Krakauer 113). The novel explains “McCandless took life’s inequalities to heart. During his senior year at Woodson, he became obsessed with racial oppression in South Africa” (Krakauer 113). On weekends he would buy meals for prostitutes and homeless people. Before he embarked on his journey, he donated every penny of his twenty-four thousand dollars to charity. Whether it was sports or his grade in a class, he always did exceptionally well. He had a lot of determination and drive in
him.