Jon Krakauer's Emotions In Into The Wild

His mother, Billie, wept, “” I just don’t understand why he had to take those kind of chances”” (132, Krakauer) and his father agonized “” How is it, … that a kid with so much compassion could cause his parents so much pain?”” (104, Krakauer). It was extremely selfish to leave his parents thinking he would be back to see them again, but he never did. Besides his family, he also left many people along the road. “He had fled the claustrophobic confines of his family. He’d successfully kept Jan Burres and Wayne Westerburg at arm’s length. And now he’s slipped painlessly out of Ron Franz’s life as well. Painlessly, that is, from McCandless’s perspective…” (55, Krakauer). After being thrown in jail for hopping freight trains McCandless called Ronald Franz to pick him up, which only deepened his affection for the young man. The most selfish thing of all, was the entire reason for his trip. He went for the same reason the author of Into the Wild went as he says, “When I decided to go to Alaska that April, I was a raw youth who mistook passion for insight and acted according to an obscure, gap-ridden logic. I thought climbing the Devils Thumb would fix all that was wrong with my life. In the end, of course, it changed almost nothing” (155, Krakauer). McCandless went on a multiple year road trip through the Western and into the North to find himself but Death got to him

Before writing Into the Wild krakauer had himself gone into the alaskan wild to try his luck in surviving out there whilst he climbs a large cliffside. In krakauer's journey a few mistakes had nearly gotten him killed from hypothermia. Similarly in chris’s journey he had died from presumably some minor accidents. These past experiences gives krakauer a bias towards chris’s experience since he had gone on an arduous journey and had nearly bit the dust himself.

In the author's notes he put “Through most of the book, I have tried--and largely succeeded, I think to--to minimize my authorial presence. But let the reader be warned: I interrupt McCandless’s story with fragments of a narrative drawn from my own youth. I do so in the hope that my experiences will throw some oblique light on the enigma of Chris McCandless”(Krakauer 2). By telling us that he will add some stories of his own make us realize that Krakauer has some relation with McCandless and it make us think that this book is more believable. In the book when he tells us that Chris just died for a simple mistake and tries to relate it to himself by telling the story of how he started to realized that going into the wilderness will change his life he emphasizes“I would go to Alaska, ski inland from the sea across thirty miles of glacial ice, and ascend this mighty nordwand. I decide, moreover, to do it alone. ” Just like McCandless, Krakauer had a lot in common with him, they both went into the wild of Alaska, which gives a lot of experience to krakauer to talk about McCandless death. In order for Krakauer to make McCandless not a crazy kid he made some other similarities between McCandless and some other people that died, with a lot of characteristics similar to McCandless and himself. Krakauer is the ideal person to criticate

To say that Krakauer does have a bias towards McCandless is a rather obvious statement and something known to the reader from the author’s note. “My convictions should be apparent soon enough, but I will leave it to the reader to form his or her own opinion.” Yet despite a personal bias Krakauer has towards McCandless he keeps his promise to the reader and serves as an impartial enough biographer to allow the reader to form their own opinions. By interviewing both those who knew Chris or Alexander Supertramp on his journey to the last frontier and Alaskan locals, Krakauer steps to the side and lets others give their thoughts or memories as well as criticisms of the man who met his fate in the Alaskan wilderness. Krakauer does interfere with Chris/Alex’s story at one point in order

In one of the first few pages of Krakauer’s novel, he notes that Chris’ story was heavily criticised. “Some readers admired the boy immensely for his courage and noble ideals; others fulminated that he was a reckless idiot, a wacko, a narcissist who perished out of arrogance and stupidity--and was undeserving of the considerable media attention he received.” (pg. 3). This, of course, was proven to not only limited to the negative feedback he received from Alaskans; but globally. In the case of Simpson’s article, it gave off a sense of disapproval. In her own words, “We were too cynical to read entry after entry from people looking for meaning in the life and death of a man who had rejected his family, mooched his way across the country and called himself “Alexander Supertramp” in the third person. I struggled to imagine the emotional currents that had carried people here to the bus, so far from their homes, to honor his memory.”. To interpret from this, it seems to be frequent that Alaskans hold no personal interest towards the meaning behind his death. More or less, Simpson generalizes the typical Alaskan take on his story. On the other hand, Jim Gallien was also an adventurer in Alaska who was the last to see McCandless before his journey, and his attitude was much more open minded.

Jon Krakauer is an author whose work primarily focuses on the wilderness and his experiences. His novel, Into the Wild, divulges into the life of Chris McCandless and his adventures into the wild Alaskan frontier. Chris seeks isolationism from his family and society and goes as far as to change his name to Alex Supertramp so he is not discovered or recognized by anyone. With mere long term survival experience, Chris makes several minor mistakes and dies; unbeknownst to anyone. After discovery, Krakauer devoted several years to Chris’ life story, going as far to use his journalism background to interview any family, friends and coworkers Chris encountered to synthesize a final overview of his life. Krakauer’s relationship with his own father

Jon Krakauer diverges from the story of McCandless’s journey, to inform the readers how all of the other adventures that occurred were similar. He wanted to show how other people were in his situation, that wanted to conquer the world with what the others had with them.

Throughout his novel Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer’s own perspectives shape the way he tells the story of Chris McCandless. Krakauer’s writing style allows for varying interpretations of the primary motivations of his protagonist, ranging from sympathizing with Chris to perceiving him as selfish. This is especially evident when Krakauer describes an interview with Walt McCandless about his son’s death seven weeks after Chris’ body was found. However, various interpretations of Krakauer’s work can lead to differing points of view on the subject. While Krakauer’s description of Walt’s emotional reaction to his son’s death could indicate Chris’ selfishness in abandoning his family, it could also serve to justify Chris’ decision to embark on his journey into the Alaskan wilderness.

“As a youth, [Krakauer was] told, [he] was willful, self-absorbed, intermittently reckless, moody. [He] disappointed [his] father…. Like McCandless, figures of male authority aroused in [him]…confusing medley of corked fury and hunger to please. If something captured [his] undisciplined imagination, [he] pursued it with a zeal bordering on obsession, and from the age of seventeen until [his] late twenties that something was mountain climbing” (134).

First, and the most noticeable, is Krakauer’s use of narration. The main purpose for writing this book was to tell the full truth of McCandless’ journey and in parallel, clear his reputation of a irrational young man. Krakauer wanted to show the reader that McCandless was not an arrogant kid that had outrageous ambitions to trek through Alaska, and one way he did this was by emphasizing McCandless’ intelligence through the use of narration by friends and family members. “Alex was Big on the Classics: Dickens, H.G. Wells, Mark Twain, Jack London. London was his favorite. He’d try to convince

He believes, unlike the Alaskans believed, that McCandless knew what he was doing and that he could have survived if not for his recklessness. He believed that the death of this boy might have been caused by the wild potatoes he had been living on (Krakauer, 193). Although, it could not be proven nor verified, this is what Krakauer, himself, concluded through his research. Krakauer also goes on to point out the distinction of his own self from McCandless, albeit of the various similarities. “As a young man. I was unlike McCandless in many important regards; most notably, I possessed neither his intellect nor his lofty ideals.” (Krakauer, 155). Krakauer regards McCandless as being much more clever and resourceful than he believed himself to be. That is what made him different from the young boy. Krakauer, himself, had given up on his passions after that dangerous encounter, whereas, McCandless had fought through until his last

Krakauer wrote this book to show people that Chris McCandless was similar to everyone and that we should respect what people think, Krakauer argues “My suspicion that McCandless's death was unplanned, that it was a terrible accident, comes from reading those few documents he left behind and from listening to the men and women who spent time with him over the final year of his life” (Krakauer 134).Krakauer is trying to persuade people into thinking that McCandless was actually like any regular kid and he tries to tell this to the people that thought that McCandless was a stubborn kid. While Krakauer was writing the book he put a counter argument against the Alaskans and clarified why it's not true. After Krakauer wrote the article and published it, he got negative comments, some of them argued“Alex is a nut in my book” … why would any son cause his parents and

In the biography, Krakauer ultimately makes clear a portrayal of McCandless as a hero, using a combination of his own experiences,

Now, before the third and final point is brought into light, it must be discussed that Krakauer could possibly be biased in his argument. He compares McCandless to a group of monks called the papar, “Reading of these monks (the papar) [ . . . ] one can’t help thinking of Everett Ruess and Chris McCandless” (97). Krakauer might do this because he could, in fact, be biased based on the fact that he had a similar experience to McCandless and relate closely to him, “But I believe we were similarly affected by the skewed relationships we had with our fathers. And I suspect we had similar intensity, a similar heedlessness, a similar agitation of the soul” (155). Now some may argue this would make him a biased author, but it doesn’t. Krakauer experienced something completely different than McCandless and handled it differently. Take the outcome of both of their adventures for example. McCandless walked into the wilderness and never came out, while Krakauer climbed a mountain and lived to tell the tale. Krakauer realized that his father was just a human being, and that Krakauer was also a thorn in his father’s side as much as his father was a thorn in his. While McCandless never had the chance to grow up -- even at twenty-four -- and realize that his father was simply human. Krakauer portrays McCandless as some

Krakauer starts the book off by telling who was last with McCandless before he set off onto the trail, he would never return to. Krakauer gives the readers background information for most of the book, along with excerpts from McCandless’s journal he seldom kept. This helps his argument because it gives us an inside look at McCandless’s life and the reasons for some of the things he would've done. Starting in chapter 11, titled “Chesapeake Bay,” Krakauer gives an insight to Christopher McCandless’s family around 2 months after his body was found. By organizing his book starting with whom McCandless met and his travel across the country, Krakauer makes his argument about McCandless and how he did not go into the wild unprepared, very clear and persuasive to the