“I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence, I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love, I felt myself in a superabundance of energy which found no outlet in our quiet life” –Leo Tolstoy. Leo Tolstoy’s views and ideas, along with other philosophers, would determine the internal drive and the overall decisions of an individual named Chris McCandless. The book Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer, is the story of a man named Chris McCandless that ventures into the great Alaskan wilderness to seek meaning in his true self. Chris is a twenty-four year old from Virginia who graduated from Emory University with a 3.72 GPA. He had a troubled relationship with his family and disagreed …show more content…
He had very strong beliefs along with the determination to let nothing stop him in his path. Chris set out to live in the Alaskan wilderness for a couple of weeks and it proved to be more than he could handle. His resources became scarce and he feared for his own life. He ended up leaving an S.O.S note on the door of the bus he was living in and it read “Injured, near death, and too weak to hike out of here, I am all alone, this is no joke (Krakauer 12).” His journey to Alaska proved to be fatal and a vast amount of theories began to spread across the media about how Chris died. Everyone has built an opinion about Chris McCandless, some say he’s crazy and ignorant and others say he’s bright and heroic. Shaun Callarman, a native Alaskan, didn’t admire him at all for his courage or his noble ideas. He felt that Chris McCandless was “Bright and ignorant at the same time,” and that “He had no common sense and no business going to Alaska with his romantic silliness.” I disagree with Shaun’s opinion to a certain extent because I feel that Chris was both foolish and noble when he began his journey to Alaska. Chris sought out to find himself and he let nothing stand in his path, but he wasn’t fully prepared for the