Krakauer

Youth is a time that every person cherishes and missed once it is gone, and Krakauer uses the “youthful derring-do” as the cause behind McCandless’s “Alaskan odyssey.” Krakauer argues that the reason why Chris went to such extreme measures was for soul searching and many other reasons, but more importantly, this would have never happened if it weren’t for Chris’s youth. Krakauer utilizes his own experiences from his youth to prove a point. He says “I knew that people sometimes climbed mountains. But at the age of twenty-three, personal mortality-the idea of my own death-was still largely outside my conceptual grasp” (151). He argues that young people think that they are invincible when it comes to surviving in the world, but they realize how wrong they are once something happens to them, and that might be when it is too late. Young people are too innocent and naïve to understand how life works, and Krakauer uses that argument to strengthen his opinion about the most important cause behind Chris’s odyssey. I do believe that Chris being young plays a role in his decision to leave on the adventure, but it is certainly not the most important factor. In Krakauer’s Into the Wild, it is evident that he believes the cause behind McCandless’s “Alaskan Odyssey” is youth, which is partially correct; however it is crucial to recognize Chris’s journey was impelled by a combination of wanting to escape from society to pursue his passion for nature and being pressured by his family to chase different ambitions.

Society is a condition where people live in a community for their mutual benefit. McCandless fled from this condition; he did not receive benefits from his surroundings. The people in Chris’s society did not understand him because he had different theories and principles about life. A large part of our society is based on money and materialistic possessions. McCandless was disgusted at how materialistic our society is and therefore, he escaped this lifestyle for a