Into the Wild
Themes
1. ‘You have to choose between what the world expects of you and what you
2.
3.
want for yourself.’ What does Krakauer say about this choice through the
stories of Chris McCandless and others?
Into the Wild is not just about Chris McCandless’ final tragic journey. It is an
attempt to justify his actions and to understand what drives people to such
extremes. Discuss Krakauer’s central concerns.
What does Krakauer have to say about ‘the allure high-risk activities hold for
young men of a certain mind’?
Techniques
1. Discuss the way Krakauer’s choice of material, tone and narrative voice help
readers understand the character of Chris McCandless.
2. In Into the Wild Krakauer creates a powerful story about a man who loved to
3.
push life’s limits. Discuss how he selects and structures his material and uses
tone to engage the reader’s sympathy.
Into the Wild is a biographical account of the interesting and challenging life
of Chris McCandless interspersed by the stories of others who have or have
had similar interests. How do narrative techniques such as structure, setting
and contrast convey these ideas?
Jon Krakauer, Selections from Into the
Wild
Questions for Making Connections Within the Reading:
1. Jon Krakauer is telling the story of Chris McCandless, who was interested in, among
other things, recording the adventures of "Alexander Supertramp." What is the
relationship between McCandless and Supertramp? What does writing under a different
name allow McCandless to do that he wouldn't otherwise be able to do?
2. Most everyone at one time or another has dreamed of getting away from it all. Chris
McCandless actually did so. Would he have been able to have the adventure he was
looking for if he'd done more research? Would his story be more or less compelling if he
had brought along a map? If he had survived?
3. One of Krakauer's central concerns in Into the Wild is to determine what drove
McCandless to embark on such a dangerous journey and to speculate on what
McCandless's motives were when he sought to make his way back out of the wild. How
does Krakauer go about trying to uncover the answers to these questions? What is his
method? What counts as evidence for him? When does Krakauer know--or feel--that he
has found what he was looking for?
Questions for Writing:
1. At the end of this reading, Krakauer asserts that one reason adults have so much
difficulty understanding McCandless's actions is that they struggle "to recall how
forcefully [they] were once buffeted by the passions and longings of youth." To
understand this observation, one must be able to define what "the passions and longings
of youth" are. What do these passions and longings have to do with escape? With the
natural world? And if one can recall such passions and longings, how might this change
one's understanding of the import of McCandless's death?
2. In providing a narrative of McCandless's journey, Krakauer draws on the writings
Chris left behind in the blank pages and margins of his books, and on the walls of the bus
where he spent his final months. What does all this writing tell Krakauer about
McCandless's motives for heading off into the wild? Is it possible to escape from
civilization in the twenty-first century? Does it make sense to try?
Questions for Making Connections Between Readings:
1. In "The Naked Citadel," Susan Faludi sets out to study how young men are turned into
soldiers at a military academy and to record how this training process was upended when
the academy was required to admit young women into its ranks. In detailing
McCandless's journey into the wild, Krakauer provides a glimpse into another ritualized
way of "becoming a man." Would you argue that McCandless's journey is consistent with
The Citadel's efforts to create a certain kind of man? Or was McCandless's journey an
attempt to escape from the masculine ideals embodied by the Citadel's students? What, if
anything, do these two stories suggest about how masculinity will be defined and
experienced in the twenty-first century?
2. Toward the end of this reading, Krakauer cites the cultural ecologist Paul Shepherd's
observations about how the nomadic Bedouin relates to the natural world. According to
Shepherd: "The nomadic Bedouin does not dote on scenery, paint landscapes, or compile
a nonutilitarian natural history . . . [H]is life is so profoundly in transaction with nature
that there is no place for abstraction or esthetics or a 'nature philosophy' which can be
separated from the rest of his life." This, Krakauer argues, is the kind of relationship with
nature that McCandless achieved at the end of his travels. And yet, with Lila AbuLughod's depiction of Bedouin culture in mind, what are we to make of the fact that Chris
fled the world that Kamla rushes to embrace? Is McCandless's view of the natural world a
form of nostalgia only available to the privileged? Is Kamla's view of city life a fantasy
only available to those on the margins?
Abram and Krakauer: Shamanism and the Excursion into the Wild
In Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer attempts "to make sense of [Chris] McCandless's life and
death, yet his essence remains slippery, vague, elusive." For this paper, I want you to
discuss how Abram's notion of the shaman helps to make sense of McCandless's
story.
You may want to consider some of the following questions. As always, this is not a
checklist of things to include in your paper, but rather a list of possible jumping-off
points to help you get started towards a thesis of your own.
1. Did McCandless see himself as a shaman-like figure? Does Krakauer? Do you?
2. Does it make sense to see Krakauer himself, rather than McCandless, as a
shaman?
3. How would Abram regard McCandless's actions?
4. Would Krakauer be as impressed with Abram's adventures as he is with
McCandless's?
5. Does anything in Abram's essay help to account for the harshness of
McCandless's critics?
6. Does McCandless's fate prove anything about the problems with the Western
attitude to nature that Abram describes?
Krakauer and Dillard: The Significance of Death
Jon Krakauer tells us that Chris McCandless died in the Alaskan wilderness. What is the
significance of that death? After all, as Annie Dillard quotes murderer Ted Bundy, "there
are so many people" (194).
Krakauer tries "to make sense of McCandless's . . . death, yet his essence remains
slippery, vague, elusive" (439). Dillard asks, "How can an individual count?" (195) For
this paper, I would like to discuss what makes a human death significant or
insignificant. As always, your paper should be built around your own argument about
this topic as it emerges from your consideration of the readings. Thus three perspectives
on how a death can be meaningful or meaningless -- Krakauer's, Dillard's, and your own - should be put into dialogue in your paper.
Circle or underline your thesis in both your rough draft and final paper. This should be
one to two sentences long and should appear on the first page.
Before you turn your paper in, make sure all of the following are true:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
My essay analyzes the readings rather than merely summarizing them.
I have included effective and correct uses of quotation in every paragraph.
I have avoided repeating grammatical errors I have made in previous essays.
Each paragraph meets the paragraph checklist.
I have presented and argued a thesis.