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Into the Wild

Into the wild is a wonderful cautionary tale. Krakauer displays Chris McCandless as

brave and a hero due to his ability to defy everything he was taught in his quest for a better path

and life. He is often displayed as a young man of outstanding intelligence, a fantastic athlete in

shape, who finds no happiness in materialism, or hunger and is upset about his father not being

there for him. He shuts off his relations with his immediate family, survived and labored his path

to Alaska. He goes "into the wild," and later discovered dead, possibly from lack of food. Chris’

actions illustrate the impossibility of total self-reliance in addition to the difficulties of escaping

familial influence.

Chris’ real drive was to achieve complete self-reliance. As much as he tries to achieve

this ideal of solitude and independence, his efforts always elude him. This is evident given the

massive volumes of interviews presented in the book of the number of people who supported

him despite claiming that he needed to leave everyone behind (Krakauer, 49). His thirst for self-

reliance becomes more apparent when he embarks on his final journey on the Stampede Trail.

Surprisingly, instead of building his shelter, he decides to camp on an abandoned broken bus, a

shelter that hunters had kept in superb condition and was simply too convenient to pass up.
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From the book it is evident that Chris despised his father, however, he displays similar

traits that he despised by choosing to leave civilization and live in the woods. As much as he

termed his father as controlling, he constantly reprimands his parents. Additionally, in his

controlling nature, he influences his friends like Ronald Franz into adopting a self-reliant

worldview as their own (Krakauer, 45). Probably, the main reason he is upset is finding out that

his father was a bigamist. He argues that his father made him and his sister live in ignorance. All

these reasons make him hide his location from his family which mimics his father's actions

(Krakauer, 23). Thus his actions establish a resemblance between him and his father, Walt

McCandless. Additionally, the narrator directly attributes his childhood irresponsibility to his

father's influence.

Fighting against all odds to ask real questions is always wonderful, however, Chris

McCandless avoided it, and took the easy way out achieved through cutting off his real

relationships, and in the end, and he passed on due to his own choices and deeds. The fact that he

gets too weak to hunt is maybe the most fascinating thing. Perhaps, if he had not cut all ties with

people he would have been able to get the assistance he needed. It is unfortunate that his doubts

and frustrations did not lead him to knowledge, but instead to excessive self-confidence in his

capacity to get through it.

In conclusion, one would deduce that Chris perished as a result of his stupidity. Yes, he

was intellectually gifted and had athletic ability however, he lacked knowledge. Wisdom can be

termed as the ability to have a skill in life and it is not necessarily available for the healthy,

young, or academically gifted. The antithesis of wisdom is folly. He decided to end his

relationships with those that loved him, despite his intelligence, gifts, and youthfulness, to start
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over without ties or connections. And therefore, his actions illustrate the impossibility of total

self-reliance in addition to the difficulties in escaping familial influence.

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Work Cited
Krakauer, Jon. Into the wild. Vol. 78. Pan Macmillan, 2018.