Into The Wild Chris Mccandless Character Analysis

Chris McCandless Chris McCandless was a young man from California who loved to be outdoors and was always very athletic. He always had the desire and ambition to do things on his own. However this was a positive and negative side to his personality because it would cost him his life by wanting to live this way. In school Chris was always a very smart student who had good grades and could have gone to college if he chose to. His parents wanted him to attend college but he felt it wasn’t for him so instead he chose to travel and hitchhike. This caused tension between the McCandless’s and adding gas to the fire, Chris’s father had an affair which angered him even more. In early adulthood when Christopher McCandless wanted to do something he did it. He didn’t let nobody change his mind or tell him he couldn’t do
it. This didn’t go well with his parents. Chris didn’t believe in what all the people in society believed. McCandless didn’t like fancy cars, big houses or vacations. All he wanted was to travel the United States and ultimately reach the Alaskan wilderness and show everybody, especially his parents that he could live on his own with nobody’s help. He didn’t want to live complex lifestyle. All he wanted was to be able to do what he wanted when he wanted and nobody telling him what to do.
When he went off to Alaska he took minimal materials so he could survive solely off the land. John Krakauer states in the book Into The Wild, “ I don’t want to know what time it is. I don’t want to know what day it is or where I am. None of that matters”(7). McCandless explains how he didn’t want no influence from the outside world as his goal would not be achieved if he did. The main reason for McCandless wanting to leave his family was because he wanted to prove to his father that he could live on his own without his help. Despite him being determined, he underestimated the harmfulness of the Alaskan wilderness. He was very unprepared only carrying a small rifle, a bag of rice, a road map and a back pack. On his way their a man gave him some rubber boots because the boots he had would not keep the snow out of his feet.
Many people believed McCandless was very arrogant and shouldn't have gone into the wilderness like he did.
After he came up dead and his story popped up in the newspaper many people gave their opinion on his decisions. One of the harshest of them said, “amounts of disrespect to the land… just another case of underprepared, over confident men bumbling around out there and screwing up because they lacked the requisite humility” (51). Most of these came from Alaskans who know how harsh the land could be but John Krakauer the author of the book Into The Wild believed otherwise. McCandless wasn’t crazy for what he did, he was just unfamiliar with the area but if he was crazy he wouldn’t have lasted in the wilderness as long as he did. (59)
In my opinion Chris McCandless achieved his goal of living off the land in Alaska. Although many people thought he was arrogant of going so unprepared. I thought he was at least courageous enough and had more heart than most of us would have had. Many people today are afraid of going after what they want and people can learn from what he did. It taught me to go after what makes you happy no matter how difficult it may
seem.