Chris Mccandless Quotes

Into the Wild Essay In 1992, 24 year old Christopher McCandless abandoned his possessions and decided to hitchhike to Alaska and invent a new life for himself. Chris had just finished college and many thought he was going to further his education but instead he took a fatal trip into the wild. There are many questions still unanswered to why he felt he needed to go on this trip and people will never know the real reason why Chris McCandless hitchhiked to Alaska by himself with insufficient equipment.

Chris was not just your average vagabond who didn’t know what he was doing or the dangers that lay ahead of him. He spent two years on the road learning and experiencing new things, finding out his strengths and weaknesses. He prepared every day leading up to his journey into the wild. The man who gave his a ride into town said that, “Alex said he wanted to go out to the university to study up on what kind of plants he could eat.” So you see, he did not underestimate the treachery of the wild, but instead did everything in his power to prepare for it.

In August 1992, a decomposed body, presumably died of starvation, was found inside an abandoned bus beside the Sushana River in Alaska. Shortly thereafter, the dead person was identified as twenty-four-year-old Chris McCandless, who was from an affluent family in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. A tragic story, with a mix of a young man, his well-off background, and happening in the most precarious but highly noble place, always had an emotional pull on people’s minds and stirred up people’s curiosity and perplexity. The question, often asked by the people with desire to grasp the truths, was why Chris with a privileged life would have gone to Alaska’s wilderness to face the ultimate challenge of his life. Was he in search of something

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

Chris McCandless was in his early 20’s, he was the kind of that guy that wanted to learn and experience life without all of the material things. He wanted to be independent from his parents and friends so Chris did something that would be insane for most of us humans but to him, it wasn’t. He went into the wild of Alaska for months, in fact, McCandless even thought he could make it out alive at the end of his journey. As a matter of fact, he was known as being a risk taker and enjoyed being out and about in the nature side of the world. Many would believe that Chris McCandless went into the wild to purposely kill himself; however, I myself believe that McCandless did not do it purposely.

Throughout the course of Jon Krakauer’s Into The Wild the reader can see that time and time again Chris McCandless is unprepared for what lies ahead of him, which is why he is not a noble man, nor should his journey be considered noble. While it is true that McCandless had gone on adventures before, nothing had prepared him for the bitter cold climate and the lack of food he had in Alaska. McCandless was not prepared physically or mentally and he did not bring anywhere near enough supplies for someone planning to spend the summer in the harsh environment of Alaska. While it wasn’t foolish for Chris to go out and try to find happiness for himself, it was foolish of him to have been unprepared to begin a difficult adventure in Alaska. Chris McCandless

Chris went off after he graduated college and “lived off the land”. Chris would travel to the coast of Mexico, the plains of Kansas, and the dunes of Nevada. Chris went on a final expedition to Alaska that cost him everything. In the following paragraphs I will fully detail how Chris was reckless, selfish, and naive. I will also explore how Chris tied his life to the beliefs of transcendentalism.

"I think that Chris McCandless was bright and ignorant at the same time. He had no common sense, and he had no business going to Alaska with his Romantic silliness. He made a lot of mistakes based on ignorance. I don’t admire him at all for his courage nor his noble ideas. Really, I think he was just plain crazy."

Into the Wild Essay Most people go into the wilderness to go camping for a week or less than a week, then leave. Some stay for more than a week. Chris McCandless was in the wild for at least one hundred days. “ I’ve decided to live this life for some time to come. The freedom and the beauty of it is too good to pass up.”(pg.92)

People believed that he ate potato seeds that were possibly poisonous (Hedysarum Alpinum) due to it being a resource around and he was starving. Chris wouldn’t have known they were poisonous but he most likely wouldn’t have eaten them if he would have accepting money, food, or have been better prepared. They think the seeds cause his stomach to weaken then eventually his body weakened, at one point he was too weak to leave the bus to try to go find food. If Chris would have saved some of the $24,000 or kept his map he would have had a better chance of

I think he just wanted to pursue life in a different way. Chris was not seeing life the way anyone else was, so he decided to brush off into the wild and be free on his own. Though he did not survive, he was still a very bright, arrogant human being. Shaun Callarman states, “He had no common sense, and he had no business going into Alaska with his Romantic silliness.” Chris knew going into the wild that he did not have much survival skills, but that did not stop him from doing what he wanted to do because he did not care about society and was just completely over everything which was why he made the move to the wilderness.

The Alaskan Bush is one of the hardest places to survive without any assistance, supplies, skills, and little food. Jon Krakauer explains in his biography, Into The Wild, how Christopher McCandless ventured into the Alaskan Bush and ultimately perished due to lack of preparation and hubris. McCandless was an intelligent young man who made a few mistakes but overall Krakauer believed that McCandless was not an ignorant adrenalin junkie who had no respect for the land. Krakauer chose to write this biography because he too had the strong desire to discover and explore as he also ventured into the Alaskan Bush when he was a young man, but he survived unlike McCandless. Krakauer’s argument was convincing because he gives credible evidence that McCandless was not foolish like many critics say he was.

Chris McCandless abandoned the modern world and chose the wild because he believed that he could improve himself through living in the wild, and found the true happiness of the life. McCandless abandoned his wealthy family because of his complicated relationship with his father, and he was ashamed with his father’s adultery. Therefore, McCandless believed that human relationship was not the only thing that forms happiness, instead a man’s connection with the nature brings joy as well. He also believed the habitual lifestyle was not what people were meant to do, and people shouldn't have more possessions than what they need. For this reason, McCandless traveled with little effects.

He made a lot of mistakes based on arrogance. I don’t admire him at all for his courage nor his noble ideas. Really, I think he was just plain crazy,” shows that Shaun believes Chris had no common sense in his doing for leaving society for the wild. I agree with Callarman’s position of thinking “ he had no common sense” and that he was “bright and Ignorant” because Chris thinks he did not have much to offer in his society, ditched all his possessions to take a trip into the Alaskan Wilderness and did not have much common sense or survival skills. Chris McCandless was very courageous for ditching all his possessions to take a trip in the wilderness.

Christopher McCandless, the protagonist of the novel and film Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer, is not your average guy. Driven by his minimalist ideals and hate for society, he challenged the status quo and embarked on a journey that eventually lead to his unforeseen demise. A tragic hero, defined by esteemed writer, Arthur Miller, is a literary character who makes an error of judgment or has a fatal flaw that, combined with fate and external forces, brings on tragedy. Christopher McCandless fulfills the role of Miller’s tragic hero due to the fact that his tragic flaw of minimalism and aversion towards society had lead him to his death.