Into The Wild Analysis Essay PDF

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Maldonado 1 Marco Maldonado Mr Millstein English 3 Dc PD. 5 30 November 2020 Into The Wild: A  nalysis Essay The downfall of Christopher Mccandles in the book Into The Wild i s a speculative topic, with multiple theories for his demise. Some say that he was underprepared going into the Alaskan Bush, while others speculate that his death was an attempted suicide with him knowing he was not going to make his way out alive. In order to fully understand why Chris died, it is important to analyze the eternal battle that is his personality traits. Chirs’s personality could be described as bipolar and ever changing, who he is as a person is seen to change throughout the book. Chris McCandles personality can be characterized positively as confident, free spirited, and motivated; at the same time he can be viewed as hubristic, selfish, and neurotic. Christopher McCandles confidence can be seen with his conversation that he has with Jim Gallien. After Chris leaves Carthage, he makes his way to the Alaskan highway where Jim picks him up alongside the road. Chris, being a minimalist packs vary lightly without all of the necessary equipment for a long stay in the woods. Speaking to a reporter after Chris dies, Jim states that “although he did not have all of the proper gear, he was a confident young man that had full faith in his abilities to live in the woods” (Brown 7). This statement fully illustrates the sheer tenacity that Chris has, instead of relying on modern technology and provisions Chris believes that he has what it takes internally to survive in the Alaskan wilderness. Another example of Chris’s confidence can be seen after he graduates college and decides to not attend law school. Instead of using the twenty-four thousand dollar to pay for further schooling or to

Maldonado 2 help him get on his feet, he decided to “donate all of the money in his college fund to OXFAM america, a charity dedicated to fighting hunger” (Krakauer 20). This demonstrates his confidence in what he believes to be right, rather than the material world around him and by doing so, implies that he does not need money for his livelihood. Chris, being an avid American Transcendentalist, rejects the concept of money, believing that everything he needs is in the natural world around him. This reliance on himself instead of the man made construct that is money, further illustrates his inner self assurance. Another positive quality of Chris is his free spirited nature. All throughout the book, Chris does not get brought down by the noise of the world around him. For the most part he sticks to himself and lives a counterculturist lifestyle of exploring the natural world. His free spirited personality contributes to lessons that our society does not understand, such as that “the material goods we all cherish and seek to obtain as status symbols are doing nothing but holding us back from doing what we are truly capable of doing” (Mason 2). He believes that material possessions are fleeting and that it is better to live a life with less stuff, but instead with experiences that define who we are. Chris’s non conformist way of living life can be shown when he meets Ronald Franz. Ronald Franz was a recovered alcoholic that Chris met in the desert near the Salton Sea. Chris believes that for most of Ronald’s life he has lived a life without new experiences, in which he thinks the joy of life stems from. Chris encourages Ronald to stop living in a state of monotony, but instead sell all that he has and travel the country. Consequently, “the eighty-one year old man took the brash twenty-four-year-old vagabond’s advice to heart. Franz placed his furniture and most of his other possessions in a storage locker, bought a GMC Duravan, and outfitted it with bunks and camping gear” (Krakauer 58). Chris’s

Maldonado 3 lifestyle may have not changed the world, but it gave purpose to an old man that was emotionally distraught. Chris’s motivation and willingness to never give up is also a character trait that he can be admired for. Chris ends up arrested after he “headed southwest and illegally slipped into Mexico packing a handgun. He then equally illegally re-entered the U.S., still packing heat only to be jailed and arrested.” (Medred 2). This showed his motivation in the sense that he did not let the law get in between him and his fantasy of making it to Alaska. Instead of giving up on his adventure after being jailed he pushed on and continued to hitchhike until he reached his final destination of Alaska. After wandering around the United States for a while Chris makes his way to Carthage, South Dakota where he plans to work at Wayne Westerburg’s grain elevator. His goal is to work in South Dakota for a couple of weeks in order to finance his Alaskan odyssey. During his time spent there, “McCandless worked hard, doing dirty, tedious jobs that nobody else wanted to tackle; mucking out warehouses, exterminating vermin, painting, scything weeds''(Krakauer 62). Although Chris largely did not believe in the concept of money, finding it shallow and fleeting, he realized that in order for him to live out his dreams he needed to accumulate some. This depicts his true motivation in the sense that what he was doing, earning money, goes against his personality. For him to go directly against what he believed to be true, he definitely had to possess motivation. Furthermore, the fact that Chris did the hardest dirty jobs on the grain elevator also showed how motivated he was to find success and get paid. Throughout the book Chris’s negative qualities are also shown including his sense of hubris. Chris’s hubris is evident in the sense that he is overconfident when it comes to living in the wilderness and knowing how to survive. In all actuality, according to an Alaskan park ranger Peter Christain “he spent very little time learning how to actually live in the wild” (Christian 1).

Maldonado 4 This was due to the fact that Chris did not bring a map or even a compass into the woods, it was only a matter of time before he got lost. Additionally he did not come into the wilderness with the proper survival gear such as a sub-zero sleeping bag or food that would have actually lasted him longer than ten pounds of rice. Another example of Chris’s hubris is him believing that he had the ability to smoke a moose after killing it. In turn, Chris ended up killing a moose and “maggots began to contaminate the meat, he had wasted a full moose dipicting his inexperience in hunting” (Medred 5). If Chris would have gotten over his arrogance in his survival abilities and actually learned how to live off the land, there is a good chance that he could have survived in the Alasakan Bush. Critics of Chrisopher McCandless' journey believed that he had a selfish personality. After Chris donated his entire twenty-four thousand dollar college fund to OXFAM, he adopted the all about me philosophy” (Medred 3). His donation prompted him to take up the selfish understanding that he had already done enough good for the world. It was now time for the world to reward him, and to allow him to live life on his own terms. Another example of Chris’s selfishness is his habit of using people for money, rides, or food. Chris states that “my days were more exciting when I was penniless and had to foliage around for my next meal, i’ve decided that i'm going to live this life for some time to come '' (Medred 2). This life that he is mentioning is the life of lawlessness and having no regard for the rules. The way Chris lives is selfish not looking to benefit anyone but himself. For instance, he was selfish when he left his family and did not keep in touch with them for two years. In doing this he did not take into consideration their emotions and how they would feel about him leaving. Lastly, another negative aspect about Chris McCandless’s character is his neurotic personality. This was exhibited when a man in Alaska remembers giving Chris a ride on the

Maldonado 5 Alaskan Highway. The man says Chris was “so bizarre (my aunt) could barely tolerate him in the car. He was smelly too, and gave no information about himself and distrusted us. It was weird. He was weird” (Medred 3). Chris’s behaviors demonstrate neurotic tendencies in the sense that he is losing touch with his reality. Instead of trusting the man who gave him a ride, he is paranoid and schizophrenic about him finding out any information of his past, a sign of neuroticism. Another sign of Chirs’s neurotic behavior is when in college at Emory University, he told his friend Don Springer “he was going to be alone in life” (Brown 4). Consequently, Chris’s depression and neuroticism is conveyed. Chris McCandles personality can be characterized positively as confident, free spirited, and motivated; at the same time he can be viewed as hubristic, selfish, and neurotic. He demonstrated his positive aspects of his character when he stood up for what he believed in and influenced others to follow in his footsteps. On the other hand, he exhibited his negative qualities when he acted dishonest and took shortcuts to achieve his end goal of experiencing the Alaskan Bush. Despite the criticism around his name, Christopher McCandles encouraged us as humans to reject the material world around us and to find a new meaning in life stemming from experiences in time spent in the natural world.

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Works Cited Brown, Chip. “I Now Walk Into the Wild”. The New Yorker , 8 Feb. 1993. Christian, Peter. “Chris McCandless from an Alaska Park Rangers Perspective”. 2006. Krakauer, Jon. Into the Wild . New York: Anchor Books, 1997. Print. Mason, Pete. “Remembering Christopher McCandless: 20 Years Later”. HuffPost , 20 Oct. 2012. Medred, Craig. “The Beautification of Chris McCandless: From Thieving Poacher into Saint”. Anchorage Daily News, 27 Sept. 2016. Murphy, Kim. “3 Hikers Rescued Near Scene of Fatal Alaska Adventure” LA Times , 29 May. 2013. Saverin, Diana. “The Chris McCandless Obsession Problem”. Outside Magazine, 1 8 Dec. 2013....