FINAL SCORE: 44/50

Cassidy Kelly
ERWC 12
Period 3
December 12, 2016
The Wild Understands
When life gets hard, it is human nature to avoid the obstacles that you are facing. People
would rather turn away from drama and issues than address them. Chris McCandless was a
boy who seemed to have it all; money, talent, brains, and loving parents. However, these views
only scratched the surface of what really went on in Chriss life and within his mind. He was a
happy boy but he became easily troubled by small things as he grew up. He was an
entrepreneur as a child, making money in his neighborhood, but soon became disgusted and
embarrassed by the wealth that his family was known to have. He took the problems of the less
fortunate and poverty into his hands and felt the pain of others. His natural abilities in many
sports and hobbies could have taken him so far but he didnt accept correction or advice. He
was a deeply misunderstood boy, which prompted him to feel the need to journey off to do some
traveling on his own. This is when he discovered his fathers background; and his double life.
Something snapped in Chris from that point on. His relationship with his parents was scarred
forever. Chris McCandless was a daring boy, replete with misunderstanding, who just wanted to
find himself again within the beauty of the natural world.
Chris McCandless always stood out in his family. He was knowledgeable, brave, and not
afraid to be different. Being unalike other in this way can be special but also make someone feel
very misplaced. Chris McCandless couldnt help but feel like somewhat of an outsider in his
home life. His parents were hard workers who made tons of money. His sister was one of his
best friends, but she was nowhere near as intense as him. Chris loved his family but was overly
eager to get out in the world. Exploring on his own was inviting to him because he was
adventurous and a very independent person. During his travels he visited his childhood home of

FINAL SCORE: 44/50

six years in El Segundo. In his time there he talked to old family friends and put together the
truth about his father. It turned out that after a messy divorce with his first wife, Marcia, and
months after falling in love and having Chris with his second wife, Billie, Walt had gone back to
Marcia and was still in a relationship with her. He was going back and forth secretly fathering
both families. He even had another child with Marcia two years after he had already had Chris
with Billie. The realization of the whole situation broke Chris down and filled him with
smoldering anger (Krakauer, 121). He became extremely hostile towards his parents, never
letting on that he knew of his fathers lies. His parents knew that something had been altered
within them because he was constantly more angry towards them and didnt speak to them near
as much as before. He could have easily promulgated the information that he uncovered,
making his mother and sister aware of the lies his father lived by for so long, but he kept it all in.
Chris was not one to seek help and he continued to forever want to take everyone elses pain
on himself, just as he had in his younger years. He was bold and strong but still could not
handle society while carrying all of these struggles on his shoulders.
Chris could have gone to therapy or talked out his findings amongst his family but
instead he kept it all wrapped up inside of him, twisting around his heart and mind and dragging
him down each and every day. All of this weight upon Chriss emotional being made the life of a
civilized city just too much for him. Regardless of the money, education, and promising careers
he had ahead of him, he was ready to let everything go to go off into the wilderness. He wanted
to create a new version of himself, ridding himself of his old name and all his problems along
with that. Going into the wild was a very daring decision for him. He was not overly experienced
with hunting, gathering, and sleeping outside in the cold. However, Chris had some experience
hiking and an abundance of experience with being alone. He was willing to lose his future that
was completely laid out for him and put his existence at risk just to get away and live this new
life before he died. He burned all of his money and abandoned his car. Then he simply walked
off to begin a hitchhiking journey, aiming for the Alaskan woods. He had one backpack with

FINAL SCORE: 44/50

almost no food and improper snow gear. Along the way he met many kind people that provided
him with advice and some supplies here and there. Chris never took advice from people in his
earlier life but people that he met under his new identity, Alexander Supertramp, seemed to
have an effect on him more than people were ever able to before. One specific instance of this
that was ephemeral but still effective was with a man named Wayne Westerberg. Chris met him
along his journey to Alaska while hitchhiking. Chris didnt plan on being stationary in one place,
and especially in a town, but he ended up staying with Wayne for much longer than he intended.
Wayne gave him a job without questioning his past and his intentions too deeply. The two men
had a tacit understanding between them that they would live as friends moving forward together
without discussing the past. Chris McCandless left his old life to get away from other people and
society and live in the wild. As Alexander Supertramp, it turns out he liked the people that he
met more than the people he was familiar with in his past life. When he was leaving Carthage,
he left behind his journal, photo album, and leather belt for Westerberg, but left nothing for his
family. Gail Borah, Wayne Westerbergs girlfriend, even said, I noticed he was crying. That
frightened me. He wasnt planning on being gone all that long; I figured he wouldnt have been
crying unless he planned to take some big risks and knew he might not be coming back
(Krakauer, 68). Chris didnt cry when he was leaving his family. Not only did he not leave them
anything to remember them by, but he didnt even say goodbye. He was clearly over his life to
the extent that he was willing to take the risk and be daring enough to venture out into the wild
for new experiences.
It is not hard to infer that Chris was complacent during his time in the wild. There were
no other carnal human beings with him, but the loneliness made him feel more alive and
boisterous than ever. When he was living in society he became withdrawn and ceased to speak
his mind. Living in the wilderness, he wrote all about what he was feeling and experiencing. He
was replenished by the beauty of nature. In a page salvaged from one of his journals he wrote,
I am reborn. This is my dawn. Real life has just begun (Krakauer, 168). Metaphorically, Chris

FINAL SCORE: 44/50

became a new person in the world but really he had just truly found himself. He discovered that
he wasnt ever meant to be the type of person who lived for money or to please others. He
belonged in the harsh reality of the natural world. The fast life of society was too much for him
but the rush of nature was his safe haven. He felt incongruous in the world he was growing up in
but as soon as he entered the Alaskan wilderness, a clement peace came over his being.
McCandless dared to drop all that he had going for him and he never regretted it even through
the very end. A passage in Tolstoys Family Happiness marked by Chris in his final days read
I have lived through much, and now I think I have found what I needed for happiness
(Krakauer, 169). This passage was a paragon for Chriss feelings towards his life in the wild.
Finding himself in the wild was a boon that he couldnt have discovered anywhere else.
Chris grew up living a life that was just not suited for him. Once he entered the wild, he
found an understanding for himself that no human being was ever able to give him. Nature
provided him with spiritual care and nurturing. He needed a more quiescent life than what
society was able to give him and the wilderness provided him with exactly that. Chris didnt
express many joyful emotions but we know from his journals that in his new life he found
pleasure. His actions were never meant to be brave in an ostentatious way, but instead they
were dares he took to find a perquisite for his own inner being. It is lucid that Chris McCandless
was a risk taker who was determined to create a new life for himself through the natural world
when artificial life proved to be unsatisfactory for him.