Into The Wild Identity Essay

When we are born, we are like a blank canevas. Growing up, this canevas becomes more and more colorful, taking from the upcoming experiences, and erasing what does not fit in. What if to truly complete the masterpiece of art, living life and travelling as far as into the wild is necessary? What if after all this you are finally at peace with yourself? In the book Into The Wild, Jon Krakauer demonstrates how Chris McCandless was an outsider of society who after accumulating bits of his identity, finds a place where he can be all of himself.

The author suggests this idea of accumulation of self and how this affects his behavior especially in chapter 16. In this particular part of the story, Krakauer shows Chris arriving into the Alaskan wild,
Chris, after his death, left behind an strong effect on the people he met, pushing them to themselves not being afraid to go out into the world and find their true self. The author clearly shows this when, after following advice from Chris, 81 years old Ron Franz “moved out of his apartment” and “twenty miles out, toward the Borrego badlands” (59). Krakauer, by choosing to meet with Franz a year after Chris’s death, proves how strong of an impression Chris has made on people, especially on the old man. Franz decided to leave his old life behind and go into the wild, where he can learn even more about himself, because as Chris thought, the wild is the purest place to go back to to test all that you are. Not only did he influence the people he encountered, but also people who read about his quest of self-discovery and decided to do the same themselves, some of them going all the way to the symbolic Stempede Trail bus. Krakauer, having himself been changed by Chris’s story even though he never met him, by including all those interviews after McCandless’ death, illustrates the message he left behind, which is of travelling to learn what you want to be and what you don’t want to be in