Some authors use stories of other to compare them to the main character of the book. In Into The Wild, the author Jon Krakauer includes stories of others for more than a comparison. Many people believed that Chris McCandless was an outrageous rebel. In the story Into the Wild, Krakauer includes stories of others and himself to make Chris McCandless not look crazy, but admirable. Chris McCandless was a bright man. He graduated high school with good grades, he went traveling that summer in his yellow Datsun. He then returned to attend college at Emory University. “In May 1990, Chris graduated from Emory University in Atlanta, where he’d been a columnist for, and editor of the student newspaper, The Emory Wheel, and had distinguished himself as a history and anthropology major with a 3.72 grade-point average”(20). After college. Chris decided to start a new life and take on a new name, Alexander Supertramp. Alexander(Chris) donated all of his money to Oxfam International and set a goal for himself: to travel to Alaska and to love off of the wilderness. Once people read the article about Alexander’s adventure and death many people said choice things regarding him. Many of those people were from Alaska. They said he was unprepared, idiotic, suicidal, and even crazy. But Alexander Supertramp was not suicidal, nor was he crazy. Jon Krakauer stated many stories of guys that left everything they had and went out into the wild to live off of nature. The story of another person that stood out the most was the story about John Mallon Waterman. John Waterman was like Chris McCandless in some ways; they both had an urge to be out in the Alaska wilderness, they both were very critical of themselves, and they both had a troubled relationship with their fathers. John Waterman was a great hiker, when he was sixteen he climbed Denali and was known for it ever since then. John Waterman was going to climb Kahiltna Glacier in the winter of 1979 but decided to stop after a mere fourteen days. Before his second try at the Glacier his belongings were all burnt after a fire that occurred in the cabin he was staying at. Waterman was devastated about what happened and immersed himself into the Anchorage Psychiatric Institute. After leaving the institute he embarked on what was his final hike on Denali. He told his pilot “ ‘ I won’t be seeing you again’ “(79). Waterman also returned the radio he was given which his only way of getting help and the last note he wrote said “ ‘ My last kiss 1:42 P.M.’ “(80). He was never seen again. It is obvious that John Waterman wasn’t in the right state of mind after his cabin burnt down. When Chris McCandless went into the Alaskan wilderness he underestimated what the conditions would be like and how long his food would last. He also didn’t know how to properly hunt. Chris only brought with him some camping supplies, a rifle, several books and a 10-pound bag of rice. When Jim Gallien gave him a ride to the Stampede Trail he offered to buy Chris McCandless supplies but, he refused. Chris didn’t realize what the Alaskan frontier was like and just assumed he would survive with what he brought and off of hunting and eating wild plants. Chris ended up dying from starvation and from eating a poisonous root. Jon Krakauer also compared Chris McCandless to many other people but comparing McCandless and John Waterman proved that Chris wasn’t crazy. “Like Rosellini and Waterman, McCandless was a seeker and had an impractical fascination with the harsh side of nature. LIke Waterman and McCunn, he displayed a staggering paucity of common sense. But unlike Waterman, McCandless wasn’t mentally ill”(84-85). Many people helped Chris McCandless along his journey to Alaska. Wayne Westerberg helped him the most, he offered him a job and wanted to help Chris make enough money to get to Alaska. “‘You could tell right away that Alex was intelligent’”(18). Everyone that was involved in Chris McCandless’s life helped him out in some way spoke very highly of him. In the story Into The Wild, Krakauer includes stories of others and his own to make Chris McCandless not look crazy, but admirable. After comparing Chris to Waterman we know that Chris wasn't crazy but simply unprepared.
You May Also Find These Documents Helpful
-
Finally in Chapter 8, the reader is given insight into the types of letters Krakauer received, after having previously written an article about McCandless, with most of the incoming mail giving harsh criticism on the young traveler's story for being mentally ill, and unprepared. Yet McCandless isn’t the only one to go off on to a far fetched adventure out into the Alaskan wilderness, as one school teacher put it, with Krakauer offering three other examples of others with stories like McCandless. These other stories of Rosellini, Waterman, and McCunn, also prove Christopher McCandless’s uniqueness despite there being similarities between him and of the many others who shared the same philosophy as McCandless. Different in a sense that McCandless,…
- 144 Words
- 1 Page
Good Essays -
In April of 1992 a young man named Chris McCandless, from a prosperous and loving family, hitchhiked across the country to Alaska. He gave $25,000 of his savings to charity, left his car and nearly all of his possessions. He burned all the cash he had in his wallet, and created a new life. Four months later, his body was found in an abandoned bus. Jon Krakauer constructed a journalistic account of McCandless 's story. Bordering on obsession, Krakauer looks for the clues to the mystery that is Chris McCandless. What he finds is the intense pull of the wilderness on our imagination, the appeal of high-risk activities to young men. When McCandless 's mistakes turn out to be fatal he is dismissed for his naiveté. He was said by some to have a death wish, but wanting to die and wanting to see what one is capable of are too very different things. I began to ask myself if Chris really wasn 't as crazy as some people thought. Then I realized it was quite possible that the reason people thought he was crazy was because he had died trying to fulfill his dream. If he had walked away from his adventure like Krakauer, people would have praised him rather than ridicule. So I asked the question, "How does Krakauer 's life parallel Chris McCandlesses?"…
- 1367 Words
- 4 Pages
Powerful Essays -
Chris, who called himself Alexander Supertramp, died at 24 years old. It may seem short, but during his last to years he became a real-life myth, a true romantic. He set out on his journey to Alaska just after graduating college. Despite his academic success, it was said by his peers that he "marched to the beat of a different drummer". He refused to find a well-paid job, get a house and settle down after graduation, choosing instead to pursue his dream of travelling to…
- 233 Words
- 1 Page
Satisfactory Essays -
His full name was Christopher Johnson McCandless, also known as Alex Supertramp. McCandless was born February 12, 1968, in El Segundo, California. He was very courageous, determined and unprepared. Chris McCandless childhood was not a perfect home every family has there ups and downs so did McCandless. McCandless reconnected with his parents at graduation even giving Billie a mother’s day card. He also told his family “I think I'm going to disappear for a while,”(Pg.21) Then McCandless donated his remaining savings of $20,000 to OXFAM, an organization trying to end world hunger. June of 1990 was the family last heard of Chris. He finally gets to begin his…
- 286 Words
- 2 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
Christopher McCandless or Alexander Supertramp should be admired for his courage and noble idea to drop everything and go into the wild, with nothing but a backpack and in it was a book of Tolstoy, a book about native plants and berries, a .22 rifle with 400 rounds of ammunition, a writing implement, a journal, a camera, a 10 pound bag of rice, a small cooking utensil, matches, a knife, and some fishing twine and a hook, and the few clothes he had on his back. Chris was trying to find himself by leaving everything behind, yes Chris might have been a little reckless but you have to be a little reckless to go into the wild and hitchhike around the world. This quote support that's chris was just living and trying to find himself was, “...McCandless pitched his tent in the puny shade of a tamarick and basked in his newfound freedom. (Krakauer 27)” this is saying that McCandless was happy to finally be by himself and start life in the wild,…
- 469 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
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.…
- 613 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
In 1992 a man began his four month journey of leaving everything behind, college, family, and all his relationships to start a completely new life in the wild. In the book The Wild by Jon Krakauer, Chris McCandless recreates a new life for himself. while following his long journey, Chris renamed himself Alexander Supertramp and met many people along the way like Gallion, Franz, and Westerberg. Although some people think that Chris’s death has purpose, really Chris died in vain, alone in the woods.Chris proves this when he risks his life countless times and gets repeatedly questioned for it by friends along his trip. Chris wasted his time in the woods and could have lived if he listened to the people around him who were trying to help him.…
- 761 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
Jon Krakauer wrote a book called Into the Wild where he described how Chris McCandless lived a risk-taking yet adventurous life. Also all the things McCandless experienced while on his journey to Alaska and all the great people he met along the way. There have been many speculations, however, on why Chris really went into the wild. Some may believe that McCandless went into the wild to escape a toxic relationship with his parents, but the real reason he left everything behind was due to his literary influences as well as his philosophical beliefs.…
- 791 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
In Jon Krakauer's nonfiction book Into The Wild the main character is Chris McCandless a young man who is extremely smart and who seems to have everything going great in his life. There is only one thing, McCandless is a man that is missing something, in my opinion he was given everything he wanted except one thing that is extremely hard to find a raw experience of life. By that I mean a crude, adventure through the middle of the country with nothing except a backpack experience. Through this novel Krakauer gives an inside look on McCandless's adventure through the Denali Trail, giving us great details on his life, his influences and how he puts that into how he lives and travels. In the novel, Krakauer also uses epigraph's in the beginning of every chapter to show a little of foreshadowing of what the chapter will be influenced by and McCandless's influence of those words in that chapter.…
- 956 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
Chris McCandless was a person who every parent would dream of having. He majored in many subjects and graduated with his high honors, but you wouldn't think expect his next step after graduation. In April of 1992, he packed up his bags, abandoned everything he had, and gave the rest of his savings to charity, to go on a journey to Mt. McKinley to start his new life. The story, “Into the Wild” was powerful how Jon Krakauer style of writing made Chris McCandless’s Adventures seem real and even pop out of books to the readers. Krakauer uses many stylistic devices/techniques in order to reveal his tone about Chris McCandless.…
- 680 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
Jon himself adventured on a similar trek to Chris’s and although his did not end fatally he sees parallels of his life and Chris’s. He believes that “people would have been quick to say of me--as they now say of him--that I had a death wish” (155). But when he decided to go to Alaska, “like Chris McCandless, I was a raw youth who mistook passion for insight and acted according to an obscure, gap-ridden logic”(155). Krakauer thus shows his credibility for writing about Chris because he realizes that he went into his travels the same way Chris did. Both men’s decisions were in no doubt questionable but the reader is now able to relate to these men’s kind of desire to find themselves in a new adventure. In addition, he writes, “As a youth {...} I disappointed my father in the…
- 936 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
Throughout chapter three, Krakauer touches on how Chris had a relatively normal, cookie cutter childhood, stating “In truth McCandless had been raised in the comfortable upper-middle-class environs of Annandale, Virginia” (19). McCandless, being a successful graduate with “a history and anthropology major with a 3.72 grade-point average,” (20) had a list of endless opportunities he could pursue. But, the ‘American dream’ seemed a little too conforming to McCandless, so he decided after graduating to leave for Alaska. After his graduation, “his exact words were ‘I think I’m going to disappear for awhile.’” before he departed on his trip to the Alaskan Odyssey. Pulling on the heartstrings of the audience, Krakauer uses McCandless’ lack of conscious and the worry of his parents to appeal to…
- 586 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
One might argue that all the things Chris did on his “odyssey” were unimportant and made little difference to the world. He did, however, change the lives of the people he had met. As chronicled in Krakauer’s book, Chris made such an impact on the people he’d encountered during his journey, they remembered so much about him years after he had left them, apparently. Ron Franz, a man Chris stay and bonded with for some time, even lost his faith because of his love for the boy. Chris had a huge impact wherever he went, and was an important person.…
- 442 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
Happiness is worth more than all the money in the world, even it is worth dying for. In the novel, Into the Wild from 1997, Jon Krakauer reveals a young man’s, Chris McCandless, life risking journey to Alaska where McCandless had planned to rediscover himself: However, this adventure became fatal and throughout the novel Krakauer uses his own life experience and other people’s positive relationship with Chris to defend him from the public, even though Chris was called an idiot because his dream ended his life. Krakauer develops a strong defense for McCandless by using McCandless’ family background, relationships he built along the way, Chris’ struggles, and other explorers with similar experiences to protect him from the negative feedback readers developed by reading Chris’s story . The purpose of this novel is to change the reader's negative opinions towards the article because when it was published readers believed that his purpose was to be a rebellious kid and seek attention from others,…
- 1022 Words
- 5 Pages
Good Essays -
“S.O.S 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. I AM OUT COLLECTING BERRIES CLOSE BY AND SHALL RETURN THIS EVENING. THANK YOU, CHRIS MCCANDLESS. AUGUST?” The novel Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer is about a young man named Chris McCandless. This individual, right after college had left in the pursuit of adventure and into the wilderness. He left without telling anyone, family and friends alike of his whereabouts and with small portions and little provisions. For this particular reason, some see McCandless as a misguided wacko who caused his own demise, while on the other hand some see him as noble, just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Chris McCandless is indeed noble! He possessed courage and ideals which I admired. He was noble for his self-reliance, being intellectual, and that he was not materialistic.…
- 944 Words
- 4 Pages
Better Essays