Krakauer wrote Into the Wild with a great deal of respect and privacy in regards to this issue, but years later Carine decided it was time to come clean. Mr. and Mrs. McCandless still claim Krakauer to have written rubbish about their beloved son. Carine commented that she was not surprised by the response because their parents never understood the impact they had on Chris or herself (Holtzclaw). McCandless was about to embark on the unforgettable journey he had waited his entire life for in order to become “King of the Road” but only for the course of two years. “King of the Road” was country singer Roger Miller’s song, published in 1965 that idealized a type of vagabond lifestyle (King of). According to the 20/20 on Chris McCandless this …show more content…
The most distinct of his viewpoints is found in his Declaration of Independence from Into the Wild: “Two years he walks the earth. No phone, no pets, no cigarettes. Ultimate Freedom. An extremist. An esthetic voyager whose home is the road. Escaped from Atlanta. Thou shalt not return, ‘cause “the west is the best.” And now after two rambling years comes the final and greatest adventure. The climactic battle to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual revolution. Ten days and nights of freight trains and hitchhiking bring his to the great white north. No longer to be poisoned by civilization he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become lost in the wild. Alexander Supertramp May 1992” (Krakauer, 163). McCandless was also known for his hatred of money. He believed to be inherently evil, and made people cautious and greedy. He hated materials and possessions generally as well. He quoted Thoreau when it came to the subject of money from Civil Disobedience, “Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth” (258). According to Into the Wild, this was a passage highlighted in one of the books found with McCandless’s remains. Above all else, McCandless appreciated the …show more content…
For one, according to Johnson, Thoreau was an abolitionist and refused to pay taxes to support what he considered to be an immoral war. Thoreau’s wilderness venture was not to cut off contact with humanity, but involved society by knowledgably standing up against it. But Johnson does report, that the closest thing to Thoreau’s Walden is Krakauer’s Into the Wild. Thoreau had conducted an experiment involving self-sufficiency in a one-room cabin in Massachusetts, while McCandless was experimenting with his life. Thoreau’s “wilderness” was anything but, with ample necessities and close region to civilization. While McCandless was submerged into the utmost wilderness without even the basic necessities that the average person would require for survival in uninhabited Alaska. Krakauer himself says that McCandless did not go into the wilderness to contemplate nature or the world, but instead to explore the “inner country of his own
In Into The wild, Krakauer narrates the last couple of journeys Mccandless had on his adventure to Alaska where he ultimately died. Mccandless Touched many people's lives through all of his journeys. Mccandless went on these journeys because he was confused in life when he figured out his dad had cheated on his mom. This changed Mccandless to the point he began to hate his parents. Mccandless had a lot of confidence in himself so he left on an adventure to find his identity.
Chris McCandless may first be described as a rebel and his inclination to abstain from the family he was brought up with. Krakauer says that he 'believed that wealth was shameful, corrupting, and inherently evil '. Despite that, Chris always liked money. Chris was also a very independent person who had a strong relationship with nature. Chris was also the kind of kid to always get good grades, without even trying to.
An atheist of Voyager whose home is the road. Escape from Atlanta. Thou shall not return, cause the West is the best. And now after two rambling yours comes the final and greatest adventure, the climactic battle to kill the false being within the victoriously conclude the spiritual revolution .10 days and nights of freight trains and hitchhiking bring him up on to the Great North no longer to be poisoned by a civilization he flees, and walked upon the land to become lost in the
Chris McCandless: A Reckless Idiot Chris McCandless was a reckless idiot and there is no denying that basic truth. Chris McCandless was a man born into a middle class family. Chris had parents that loved him, a roof over his head, and food to eat. Despite all those riches he had, he threw them away. Chris was a very selfish man.
In the short story, “Death of an Innocent” by Jon Krakauer, Chris McCandless travels into the Alaskan wilderness with the intention of relying completely on himself. In the true spirit of transcendentalism, McCandless travels to escape the bounds of society and to remove himself from a materialistic world. Many argue, however, that Chris McCandless was not a transcendentalist because he travels to exotic lands as a means of avoidance, but actually, Chris McCandless is the epitome of a transcendentalist. Transcendentalists, however, rely on themselves and nature to survive and do not depend on material items. Transcendentalists romanticize individualism and believe that intuition is the best guide through life.
Going out into the wild all by yourself can be nerve wracking and lonely. Jon Krakauer makes Chris McCandless seemed like a noble person who took the initiative to try to go out and live into the wild. The book Into the Wild written by Jon Krakauer, is about a teenager named Chris McCandless leaving society and traveling to Alaska by himself with nothing else but a bag of rice and a small .22 caliber gun. Chris is heroic because he went to Alaska by himself without any knowledge of Alaska and didn’t know any of the dangers of Alaska. One way Krakauer make Chris seem noble is when Chris is about to enter Alaska he tells Gallien “ I’m goin’ to get on up there live off the land,go claim me a piece of the good life” (Krakauer 4).
His family was proved to be the main reason why McCandless left for his journey toward Alaskan wilderness-to find freedom and peace without being involved with his parents. Jon Krakauer, the author of Into the Wild, stressed that the incident in which McCandless discovered his dad wrongdoing act as a catalyst that lead to his angered: “Long after falling in love with Billie, long after she gave birth to Chris, Walt continued his relationship with Marcia in secret, dividing his time between two households, two families.” The discovery fueled McCandless hatred toward his family as he lost all respect to his father, the one he looked up to, the one that he considered as his role model. McCandless was upset and angered by his father’s action, which explain why he left his family, even leaving his sister behind, the person who was said to be the closest person to McCandless. As if knowing that his father cheated on his mother while continue his relationship with his old wife was not enough, the real truth about McCandless’s father was completely exposed, as Carine Mccandless released her own book The Wild Truth, revealing the naked reality of the world McCandless
However, Jon Krakauer proves his argument that McCandless was not arrogant, foolish, antisocial, or crazy by giving examples of other young men who were similar to McCandless to show that his journey wasn’t unprecedented. He also proves that McCandless wasn’t antisocial because he developed personal relationships with Ronald Franz, Wayne Westerberg, and Jan Burres in such a short amount of time and explaining the many times that McCandless respected the Alaskan Bush. Krakauer admits that McCandless may have suffered from hubris; he was still a victim of circumstances. Krakauer proves that McCandless had an intrinsic motivation to discover and that he wasn’t alone because Krakauer too ventured into the Alaskan Bush when he was younger. The Alaskan Bush is a very difficult place to survive if one isn’t prepared for many challenges such as hunting for food or staying warm in the frost ridden
What happened instead was that McCandless died at an early age, whilst Krakauer barely made it to tell the tale; proving nothing of value came from their journeys. While life on the road can offer solace to individuals who have struggled in their lives, it is unfathomable to think that the wilderness will offer them any embrace to their ambitions; therefore it should not be pursued as it leads to family issues and ignorant behavior. Life on the road can provide one with a sense of independence from the confines of society. For example, Chris McCandless decided to escape the societal
The revelation that he was merely human, and frightfully, so beyond my power to forgive (148 Krakauer ).” And how McCandless could not accept how his father wanted to used money to get Chris to be someone that he is not or control him. Another example for the distaste towards authority, “Like McCandless, figures of male authority aroused in me a confusing medley of cork fury and a hunger to please... If something captured undisciplined imagination, I pursued it with a zeal bordering on a obsession, and from the age of 17 until my late twenties... (134 Krakauer
For this, McCandless should be admired for his views for allowing him to live his best life. In conclusion, McCandless is not a reckless individual who perishes due to arrogance. Instead, he is admirable because his ideals have allowed him to live with true happiness. He waits long years and even breaks his values temporarily in order to achieve his goals.
This is proof that he was a transcendentalist because he didn’t care about money or other items, he believed he could survive in the wild on his own. In Emerson’s essay Nature, he says in order to be a full transcendentalist everyone must live their life in nature to experience the true meaning of happiness. Emerson would agree that McCandless was a transcendentalist like himself because he had the same beliefs involving materialistic items, and had lifestyles that nonconformist would
As evident by this quotation by Thoreau, his motives purely consist of living in the idealistic states of nature rather than that of “civilization”. Thoreau also stated, “I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life…”- (taken from Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden”). Thoreau, in this statement shows that he is completely self reliant in the sense that he alone went out to nature to reap what he could and survive by his merits alone, sustaining himself only on what nature had to offer. While conversely McCandless could only survive with a
His persistence carries him through his journey into the wild, but also gives him trouble in later life when he gets a job at McDonald’s but leaves because they want him to wear socks while working (Krakauer 39-41). However, although McCandless has a few good morals, he lacks the belief of valuing family. This is evident when he states that, “I’m going to completely knock [my parents] out of my life… and never speak to either of those idiots again as long as I live” (Krakauer 64). McCandless’s beliefs give him a platform for his identity as a stubborn person that is hungry for something challenging, but also provides him with hardships and trouble along the
Where there is Energy: there is life Having Energy means having life yet we are running out of fuel. How are we going to survive if our energy sources are depleting. We must make a change. Confucius and Henry David Thoreau would argue upon whose responsibility the stewardship of natural resources would depend on, but both would agree that either the individuals, or a society should take action.