Stanley Zalta
• Jon Krakauer try's to explain, what different factors can drive a
person to leave everything they have behind and start a new
life in the wild. In this particular non-fiction book, the author tells
us the story of Chris McCandless who failed at surviving and
died of starvation in a stranded bus.
• Chris McCandless, a young man decided to abandon society and
hitchhike to Alaska where he settled in the wilderness. He had left
everything behind, his money, family, car and his possessions all
he had was a small backpack with materials useful for his
survival. Four months later his body was found inside an
abandoned bus, decomposed.
• Chris was a very hard worker and a very intelligent kid and he
came form a good family
• Chris McCandless body is found decomposed in an abandoned
bus, the cause of death was starvation.
• In October of 1990 Chris abandoned his car because he got
caught in a flash flood and this caused the battery to die. He
burned all of his possessions and hitchhiked west and found a
job in a farm witch he later left because they weren't going to
pay him.
• In 1991 Krakauer pieces together that he spent time in
California and Bullhead City, Arizona. He spent two months in
Bullhead City, got a job at McDonald’s, opened a bank account,
and even introduced himself by his real name, Chris
McCandless.
• In Chapters 8 and 9, Krakauer compares McCandless with other
explorers before him. Krakauer notes the lack of sympathy
Alaskans felt for McCandless when they read the article
Krakauer wrote about his death. Many felt that he was a foolish
child, who arrogantly attempted to brave the Alaskan
wilderness.
• when he had gone to the neighborhood where he had spent his
earliest years, he gets enough information to piece together that his
father had continued his relationship with his first wife in secret long
after falling in love with Billie and fathering Chris, even fathering
another son with her.
• “But he did not confront his parents with what he knew, then or ever. He
chose instead to make a secret of his dark knowledge and express his
rage obliquely, in silence and sullen withdrawal.”
• Into the Wild, 123
• Krakauer points out that one of the main reasons of why Chris left to
Alaska was because he had family issues, mainly with his dad. I
agree with this quote because the fact that Chris kept all this dark
feeling inside and didn't deal with them influenced him to leave to
Alaska unprepared and lead his to his death.
Subsections 5-6
• "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 baggage 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,
flitting 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, 55
• This passage illuminates McCandless’s deep problems with intimacy,
which are very central in his two-year quest for meaning and peace.
During these two years, McCandless doesn’t contact his sister, with
whom he was very close, and while he meets many people and
becomes close to a few, he always makes sure to maintain a certain
distance.
• In this quote I am agreeing with the author. Krakauer is
implying that McCandless has intimacy issues and this
is evident in many cases thought the book.
• In the last part of the book the author inserts his own personal
experiences. Krakauer shares much in common with Chris
McCandless and the other men he has discussed he was young
and willful and also had a strained relationship with his father.
• The last section of Into the Wild is especially tragic, in that it
shows that McCandless, at least from what little evidence is
available from his last weeks, had matured, and was ready to
rejoin society.
• « I have had a happy life and thank the lord.
Good bye and may god bless all!» (119)
• He takes a last picture of himself in front of the
bus, holding his farewell note, and then crawls
into his sleeping bag and at some point in the
next few days, dies.