The Depiction Of Self Reliance Of Chris Mccandless In Into The Wild

What kind of person was Chris McCandles and what was he trying to do? Chris McCandless or also known as Alexander Supertramp was an outgoing, adventurous, troubled, peculiar young man who actually believed in his dreams and followed them. He was very determined at a young age things had to go his way or no way as well as a great spirit,ambition to succeed,well educated fellow,good athlete, and high achiever in his studies both in grade school through college. However, in college he had a different plan for himself. Chris ultimate goal was to go on a journey to reach and live off the land of the wilderness Alaska depending all on hitch-hiking and on foot. Without leaving any clues to anyone where he was heading to or why he had just randomly vanished he didn't bother to master the necessary skills. He had no map,small. 22 rifle, improper clothing, and carried 10 pounds of rice with no crampons. He was heavily influenced by Thoreau and Tolstoy anti-establishment idealistic thinkers which influenced him on his journey.

McCandless was very much a bush-casualty stereotype but Krakauer states, “McCandless didn’t conform particularly well to the bush-casualty stereotype. Although he was rash, untutored in the ways of the backcountry, and incautious to the point of foolhardiness, he was not incompetent-he wouldn’t have lasted 113 days if he were. And he wasn’t a nutcase, he was not a sociopath, he wasn’t and outcast. McCandless was something else-although precisely what is hard to say. A pilgrim, perhaps” (85). Krakauer believes that McCandless was not a crazy person because of how long he survived and compared him to an irish monk as well as a pilgrim who just sailed the ocean and not looking for a destination or knowing where they were going. Krakauer can really relate to this because he knows what McCandless wanted to do no matter how crazy the people believed he was, he was still going on the journey to accomplish it even if it killed him. Krakauer experienced danger in his life plenty of times and in Krakauer's opinion he believes what McCandless did was not irrational. This is why Krakauer believes that McCandless is more of a pilgrim because Krakauer has done a lot of pilgrims like in his life. As well Chris still went into the wild with arrogance and without thinking which led him to his death where he believed he could have lived in the wilderness but did not survive in the end which makes him a bush casualty stereotype.

Chris McCandless went into the wild for several reasons that Krakauer demonstrates, most important among them is his disdain for modern society.“The fragility of crystal is not a weakness but a fineness. My parents understood that fine crystal glass had to be cared for or may be shattered. But when it came to my brother, they did not seem to know or care that their course of their secret action brought the kind of devastation that could cut them. Their fraudulent marriage and our father’s denial of his other son was for Chris a murder of every day’s truth. He felt his whole life turned like a river suddenly reversing the direction of its flow. Suddenly running uphill. These revelations struck at the core of Chris’s sense of identity. They made his entire childhood seem like fiction. Chris never told them he knew and made me promise silence as well” Krakauer(158). This is one of the reasons that led Chris to want to go into the wild because he wanted to remove himself from the modern society.

Another reason McCandless went into the wild is his sense of adventure. The word ̈Adventure ̈ pops up hundreds of times throughout the book which is one of Chris's ways of telling his life to others. In his letter to Ron Franz McCandless writes ̈ The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun ̈(57). Chris indicates the intense pursuit of adventure. He then continues in the letter by explaining to Ron Franz that he needs to lose his sense of security in order to get more out of life. For many people the sense of security is having things so Chris wanted to get away from the materialistic security.McCandless did all this to follow excessive tendice and seeking in pleasure, his idea of fun was dissimilar than other peoples way of fun which I feel is why many people seen him as crazy.McCandless was actually finding pleasure from his simple way of life which ended up making an endless change in horizon, he later again hints that the way he lives gives him actually joy.¨You are wrong if you think joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living ̈ (57). Chris got out of his comfort zone, wanted to do anything that made him happy, explore the unexplored and discover a life without responsibility, possessions, people, money, and wanted to lose himself into the wild.

Chris was also influenced to go into the wild because he was inspired by Leo Tolstoy and Henry David Thorue, who both were mentors and inspired Chris. He knew that wealth was corrupting society, and that people were meant to live in mental development and chasing of personal growth. Like Thorue, choose to live and travel in the wild to lose himself and remove his mind from the society.¨He was an extremely intense young man and possessed a streak of stubborn idealism that did not mesh readily with modern existence... In college McCandless began emulating Tolstoy's asceticism and moral rigor... When the boy headed off into the Alaska bush... peril, adversity, and Tol-stoyan renunciation were precisely what he was seeking ̈(Authors Note).By McCandless escaping from society and attempting to remove his ties with people, all Chris wanted to do is find a meaning of life that was personal to him. In his mind being away from material goods and worrying about your own future were things that took up time and space which would then end up leaving no room for any type of other mental growth. People said he was on a path to greatness even though they did not have or share the same ideals as his; sadly, he was so consumed into the idea of hard wilderness living that he was unprepared, rushed into a situation that eventually led to his death.

McCandless did find what he wanted to before he died, Chris McCandless had central beliefs one of them he held was as he traveled throughout America was he should be self-reliant and independent, Based on Emerson's idea of self-reliance. McCandless saw anyone or anything who might draw him into participating in civilisation as dangerous because he thought it would ruin his trust in his own instincts and independence. This is the reason why he carefully removed himself from the people who cared, loved and would have tried to stop him from his journey into the wild.¨McCandless was thrilled to be on his way north, and he was relieved as well—relieved that he had again evaded the impending threat of human intimacy, of friendship, and all the messy emotional baggage that comes with it. He had fled the claustrophobic confines of his family. He’d successfully kept Jan Burres and Wayne Westerberg at arm’s length, flitting out of their lives before anything was expected of him. And now he’d slipped painlessly out of Ron Franz’s life as well ̈ (55).The following quote develops this belief that chris has. Krakauer establishes the McCandless knew rob was a very generous man for wanting to adopt him as one of his son ́s as well he saw it as a ̈threat ̈ to his rule of independence. This shows how he tries to stay away from people as they began liking and wanting to take care of him. Chris also believed in not carrying any equipment or resource that every other journeyers would carry such as, compass, a rifle or a map that would be considered essentials. For him to be independent meant being reliant on his own and not any items or equipment that could save him.

McCandless was a distinct person who just wanted to get away from the modern society and live an easy nomadic style of living. McCandless wanted to enjoy the scenery in life while doing things that made him happy. McCandless ultimate goal was to explore the world and reach the great north to enjoy the beauty of the wilderness alaska.