Chris Mccandless Flaws In Into The Wild

A Man of Many Places A man thought to have been known by many, but the harsh reality came to be was that no one really knew him. He allowed only a small portion of himself to those he met along the way even to those he was closest with. In the novel Into The Wild, John Krakauer delves into the life of Chris Mccandless aka Alexander Supertramp on his two year long journey to the Alaskan wilderness. He presents a real life character with many flaws and a drive unknown to most during his life but himself. He was seeking to sedate his desire for adventure, and to solve the problems he faced at home.
Christopher Johnson McCandless was a young man who was born in El Segundo, California. He was the first child of Billie and Walt McCandless. Later,
Those who had known him as Chris knew him as someone who “Wasn't antisocial - he always had friends, and everybody liked him - but he could go off and entertain himself for hours. He didn't seem to need toys or friends. He could be alone without being lonely.” (107) and to those who knew him as Alexander knew him as someone who’d “demand to know more...He was hungry to learn things. Unlike most of us, he was the sort of person who insisted on living out his beliefs. ” (67) Chris even touched the lives of those who didn’t know him but just his story. He gained both positive and negative views such as one reader of Outsider magazine saying “ The scope of his self-styled adventure was so small as to ring pathetic...Only one word for the guy: incompetent. ” (177) Chris is/was many things to many people, but the best way to describe him is just as the author of Into The Wild did, as someone who “ didn’t conform particularly well to the bush casualty stereotype. Although he was rash, untutored in the ways of the backcountry, and incautious to the point of foolhardiness, he wasn't incompetent - he wouldn’t have lasted 113 days if he were. And he wasn’t a nutcase, he wasn’t a sociopath, he wasn't an outcast. McCandless was something else - although precisely what is hard to say a pilgrim perhaps.” (85)
He was seeking to solve all his problems by escaping to a place where he thought they did not exist all the while, going on a journey equal to that of a Jack London novel. He was a man of many qualities, some good and some bad. But just like the rest he was trying to be the truest form of himself and be the champion of his own