The Imponsition Of Identity In Christopher Mccandless, By Jon Krakauer

Family, friends, and possessions pressure individuals through the imposition of values that contribute to identity; we are told that we obtain our qualities simply by inheritance and association. The environment one chooses to surround themselves reflects similar learned behaviors and thought processes. Deviating from the norm is often contemptible, but natural, according to author Jon Krakauer. Realizing that he did not want to become a carbon copy of his parents and environment, Christopher McCandless wandered the American West for two years, as a nomad, to reject society as he knows it―his family, friends, and possessions. He burns his money, abandons his car, and cuts all ties with his family on an identity crisis that would lead to his
Krakauer reveals that his father Walt clandestinely maintained a relationship with his first wife and had children by her even after he married McCandless’s mother, Billie. To McCandless this was unforgivable; he “could not pardon the mistakes of his father… and was less willing to pardon the attempt at concealment. ” (Krakauer 122). McCandless was even contemptuous of his own mother because he thought her actions complacent to his father’s “less than sterling behavior” (Krakauer 122). He abhorred his parents in that “the deception committed by Walt and Billie made his ‘entire childhood seems like a fiction.” Walt McCandless’s character thus offers the narrator one important, implicit justification for Christopher McCandless’s journey into the wild. Christopher’s discontent with his father and his anger at a lifetime of lies pushed him away from people entirely. Krakauer’s depiction of Walt as stern, strong-jawed, and aloof only reinforces this proposition.(Krakauer 123) Consequently, McCandless “did not confront his parents with what he knew, then or ever. He chose instead to make a secret of his dark knowledge and express his rage obliquely, in silence and sullen withdraw.” He wanted to be an exception to the platitude “the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.” He believed that he was not destined to become his father. His subsequent actions express this. Upon returning to college, McCandless he adopted new behaviors. “[McCandless] remained largely or entirely celibate, as chaste as a monk. Chastity and moral purity were qualities that McCandless milled over long and often” (Krakauer 65). McCandless would circle and highlight passages in the works of Tolstoy and Thoreau that denounced such acts, showing he did strongly believe in these morals. It is easy for humans to engage in activities of sexual intimacy,