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Into The Wild Relationships

Decent Essays

Relationships between people can change lives forever. For instance, the relationship between a parent and a child is one of the most important ones because that is where our consciousness about love, trust, and assurance comes from. Depending on the relationship, it can either benefit or negatively affect the child’s future, since little children always look up to their parents as role models. In the novel, Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer, Chris McCandless is negatively affected by his relationship with his parents. Chris McCandless’ parent, on the outside, appear to want Chris to be a successful student. Meanwhile, in the inside appearance, especially Walter, was an abusive father. This reflected a double life and could cause a devastating …show more content…

The major contribution making it a fiction was the dad lived a double life. Chris found out when he visited his neighborhood (El Segundo) where he grew up the first six years of his life. There he pieced together the information about his father’s first marriage. Found out that Walt did split from his first wife and remarried, had Chris. Meanwhile, he continued his relationship with the first wife. When Jon Krakauer wrote that, “I’m going to completely knock them out of my life. I’m going to divorce them as my parents once and for all and never speak to either of those idiots again as long as I live” (64). Such a quote showed that Krakauer understood that McCandless hit the maximum point where he could not tolerate this “fake relationship” and would have a hard time forgiving his parents. This shaped Chris to be independent and closed off from sharing his feelings. On the other hand, relationship with his younger sister was a genuine one. As Carine described it, “He was always really nice to me” (110). When the parents would be quarreling, Chris would protect her, when they walked down the street, Chris would hold her hand. Even though he was the shortest in his class, he was strong. All these actions made them close and were able to count on each other. This relationship shaped Chris in a way maybe to see his potential in protecting others first and see if he can protect and survive …show more content…

If his parents had a more normal and peaceful relationship, the outcomes would not have been so extreme. For example, having a stable family creates a healthier, more open and secure environment. Instead, Chris started to develop a distant relationship with his parents because of one of the choices the dad made, maintained two relationships. In addition, when a family relationship is in a chaotic stage, it will affect how the person treats other people. The person would be more distant, distrustful, self-sufficient, etc. That is, what Chris ended up to be when he decided to

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