Essay on Into The Wild is by Jon Krakauer

The book Into The Wild is by Jon Krakauer, It’s about a young man named Chris Mccandless, who lives a pretty good but short life, Chris is part of a rich family, who has given him everything in life. Mccandless doesn’t like being a part of his family though, because his parents fight often. Chris would rather be somewhere peaceful, like where him and his grandpa went when they would go camping. Hence, Chris Mcandless went 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 bagggae 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, fitting out of their lives before anything was expected of him.. And now he’d slipped painlessly out of Ron Franz’s life as well” - Into The Wild Page 55. This passage shows Chris Mccandless’s deep problems with intimacy, which come up alot in his in his fatal two year quest for finding the quiet and peace he always wanted. During Chris’s time in the wild he didnt have any contact with his family, including his siter carien, whom he was very close with, and even the Chris met multiple people on his way, he always made sure to have a maintainable distance between them. In this passage he hasjust slipped away from Ron Franz, who spends the next year and a half awaiting Chris Mcandless return, even though Mcandless completely threw away the idea of close personal connection or intimacy by going deep into the wilderness, where he has only himself. Mcandless makes himself forget the feeling of personal connection he also forgets to think about the effect of his choices, on the people he that love him the most, the Mcandless family. Therefore, I would say Chris was arrogant or stupid, but he was very very narcisstic. He onlky thought about himself and never about the other people that he might’ve made an impact on.

On page 69 of Into the Wild, Jon Krauker writes out one of Chris’s letters to Wayne Westerberg it states, “ Please return all mail I receive to sender. It might be a very long gtime before I return South. If this adventure proves fatal nd you don’t hear from me again, I want you to know you’re a great man. I now walk into the wild.” This note that Chis sends to Wanye Westerberg, make many people question if Chris’s trek into the wild was actually a suicide mission, but I beleive this to be unlikely. Chris actually acknowledges the fact that this journey maybe risky, this shows that his arrogance is not as extreme as people make it out to be. Chris McCandless does not want to die but he knows that the journey ahead of him is dangerous, and could even result in his own death. However, this is what Chris is willing to do for his one experience of living independently and free from all other human life, you can even see his enthusiasm in the final sentence of the postcard he sent to Wayne. Saying all of this I dont believe that Chris McCandless was crazy, he was actually very much a sane person and he knew exactly what he was getting himself into. Did Chris care about the consequences? No, not really he knew he could die, yet he didnt kn0ow to wat extet this would be at.

Chris Mccandless came into the wild very unprepared. On page 6 Krauker states “He didn’t take the advice of people who were experienced: Gallien offered to drive Alex all the way to Anchorage, buy him some decent gear, and then drive him back to wherever he wanted to go. “No thanks anyway, Alex replied, “ill be fine with what I’ve got.” This shows that Chris wa snot only unprepared it also shows that he didnt care. This shows that Chris Mccandless was actually very reckless with the way he preparedf for the wild. Even though multiple people offered him help he always openly refused.Written on page 16 Jon Krauker states “ He had no axe, no bug dope, no snowshoes,no compass. The only naviogational aid in his posssession was a tattered state road map he’d scrounged up at a gas station.” This statement by Jon Krauker shows that Chris wa snot even a little unprepared he was wildly unprepared. Was Chris a reckless idiot for these things though? I wouldnt say he was an idiot, but i would say he was very stubburn and reckless.

“Make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservation, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. 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. If you want to get more out of life, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty.” This statement by Jon Krauker tells us all we need to know about Chris Mcandless’s courage. Chris went out into the wild making one of the biggest sacrifices in his life he couldve ever made, he stepped away from the money his family had, their huge house and boat, and away from all reality and technology. This was  very courageous of Chris, because all his life those were all the things he had known, he didn’t know how to survive out in the woods, how to gut an animal, what plants where what. Chris Mcandless didnt know any of those thing s but jhe still went out to live the lfe he wanted and I’d say that pretty courageous.

“Roman, Andrew, and I stay up well pat midnight, trying to make senseof Chris McCandless’s life and death, yet his essence remains slippery, vague, elusive. John Krauker writes this osentence on page 186. This quote show sone of the  biggest themes in the book Into The Wild. That it is impossible toknow everyone;s story, what makes them do what they do, and even how they end up, this is a very big problem in biography. It looms even larger over this specific biography because McCandless has died, and has left a fairly elusive trail. His journals are largely only descriptions of events and foods, and there spans almost a whole year during which he doesn’t leave any documentation. Krakauer does all he can to “make sense of McCandless’s life and death,” and he ultimately seems to come very close; yet a true, full understanding remains impossible.