Into the Wild
By Jon Krakauer
The Journey of Chris McCandless
1990-1992
On the Book Cover
In April 1992 a young man from a well-todo family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked
alone into the wilderness north of Mt.
McKinley. His name was Christopher
Johnson McCandless. He had given
$25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned
his car and most of his possessions, burned
all the cash in his wallet, and invented a
new life for himself. Four months later, his
decomposed body was found by a moose
hunter…
Chris McCandless is described in the book as…
• “fearless”
• “a high achiever”
• “a gifted French-horn
player”
• “well-coordinated”
• having
“extraordinary
energy”
• “one of the top
distance runners in his
region”
•
•
•
•
•
“an incorrigible ham”
“angelic”
competitive
“a salesman”
“hungry to learn
about things”
• stubborn
• “chaste”
• obsessive
What do the above
show about Chris?
Why did he do it?
“McCandless went into the wilderness not
primarily to ponder nature or the world at
large but, rather; to explore the inner
country of his own soul.”
Krakauer
What does that mean “the inner country of
his own soul”?
POSTCARD FROM CHRIS MCCANDLESS
TO WAYNE WESTERBERG
IN CARTHAGE, SOUTH DAKOTA
Greetings from Fairbanks! This is the
last you shall hear from me Wayne.
Arrived here 2 days ago. It was very
difficult to catch rides in the Yukon
Territory. But I finally got here.
Please return all mail I receive to the
sender. It might be a very long time
before I return South. If this adventure
proves fatal and you don’t ever hear
from me again, I want you to know
you’re a great man. I now walk into
the wild.
APRIL 27TH, 1992
Alex
Notice his changed name
Where is
“the wild”?
•
•
•
•
Stampede Trail
Kantishna Plain
Denali border
20 miles west of
Healy, Alaska
Close-up map (from book p. 8)
“He was an
extremely
intense
young man
and
possessed a
streak of
stubborn
idealism that
did not mesh
readily with
modern
existence.”
Chris McCandless
Chris’ Influences
(mentioned in the book)
• Henry David Thoreau
• Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Leo Tolstoy
• Jack London
Transcendentalists
Transcendentalism
(Thoreau and Emerson)
The movement placed great emphasis on the
individual, nature, freedom,
nonconformity, and spiritual wealth.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Stated that man must only rely on himself and trust
his own judgment above all others
Henry David Thoreau
From 1845-1847, he lived in a small house he built
on the shore of Walden Pond in Massachusetts;
living there, he wrote many essays arguing the
value of simplicity and high principles.
Other Influences
Leo Tolstoy - Never named
himself an anarchist, but he
took the anarchist position in
regards to state and property
rights
Jack London – He wrote about the
struggle between man and nature. His
two most famous books portray dogs
who must fight all odds to survive.
Characters
Family
• Chris McCandless
(Alexander Supertramp)
• Billie and Walt McCandless
Chris’s parents
• Carine McCandless
Chris’s sister
Friends
•Jim Gallien – Picks up
Chris & drops him at the
Stampede Trail
•Wayne Westerberg
Chris’s boss and friend –
Chris works on his farm
in South Dakota
•Ronald Franz
A man who takes a
special interest in Chris
and even says he would
like to adopt him
About the Author – Jon Krakauer
Krakauer never considered
writing as a career until 1974,
when a climbing magazine
asked him to recount a first
ascent in Alaska.
In 1980, he started with
Outside magazine in which he
published “Lost in the Wild,”
an exclusive report about
McCandless’ experience, in
1993.
Outdoor Experience
Krakauer is an adventure
seeker as well. His climbing
résumé features numerous
ascents, many of them solo.
He is, perhaps, most well-known for
Into Thin Air, his personal account of
climbing Mt. Everest in 1996. As he
turned to begin the perilous descent
from 29,028 feet, twenty other
climbers were still pushing doggedly
to the top, unaware that the sky had
begun to roil with clouds...
Reading Alerts
•Chapters begin with interesting excerpts and
passages – DO NOT skip these!
•Chapters about plot are interspersed with
chapters about related adventures, some of which
are Krakauer’s
•Difficult vocabulary – Use a dictionary!
•Time/setting shifts
Themes/Main Ideas?
Krakauer writes in the “Author’s Note,” “In trying to
understand McCandless, I inevitably came to reflect on
other, larger subjects as well: the grip wilderness has
on the American imagination, the allure high-risk
activities hold for young men of a certain mind, the
complicated, highly charged bond that exists between
fathers and sons.”
Other main ideas to think about:
Non-conformity, technology, minimalism, materialism,
self-reliance, happiness, success, etc.
Interview with Krakauer
The following audio is from Krakauer’s interview with NPR regarding Sean
Penn’s movie version of his novel.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14564827
How do you think you’d feel if you were Chris’s brother or sister? Would you
be OK with all of the media attention/ book/ movie?
What is the difference between the book and the movie in terms of how how
the family/parents are portrayed?
How does Krakauer explain Chris’s decisions?
How did Chris’s mom cope with her son being gone/missing?
What is starvation like, according to Krakauer?
How was Krakauer like Chris?
Which artifacts are still at “the bus”?