Literary Analysis Into The Wild

Allison Grubb
Cultural analysis
Prof. Santana
English 102
30 March 2017
No Risk, No Reward? In September 1992, Chris McCandless was found in an abandoned bus in Alaska. Into the Wild is his story. But what is his story supposed to teach us? McCandless's journey into the wilderness is ultimately one of self-discovery and reinvention. Through his travels, he transforms from an angry, recent graduate, eager to break all ties with his family, into a wanderer and amateur mountaineer. But, in the end he dies of starvation. While Krakauer says that a "raw, transcendent experience" is almost impossible to reach, he does acknowledge that there is some appeal in discovering one's self along the brink of death and danger (Chronicling). But, he suggests
Every time that he did, some stranger would appear and bail him out, which led him to mistake his good luck for hardiness. Krakauer writes that, “I’d thought he’d be fine in the end…he was smart. He’d figured out how to paddle a canoe down to Mexico, how to hope freight trains, how to score a bed at inner-city missions. He figured all of that out on his own, and I felt sure he’d figure out Alaska, too” (Krakauer, 46). This is how McCandless saw it as well. So, when he finally headed north for what he called his "great Alaskan odyssey," he was frightfully unprepared, mentally and physically. Yet he ignored the advice of Alaskans he met on the way. This is an example of McCandless unnecessarily risking his life. He doesn’t listen to the people trying to help him. He believed that he could do it by himself. This ultimately led to his
Krakauer says, “…like Chris McCandless, 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. But I came to appreciate that mountains make poor receptacles for dreams. And I lived to tell the tale” (Krakauer, 155). Krakauer believed that scaling the treacherous mount would change his life for the better. Which is exactly what McCandless's was hoping for in his quest as well. McCandless believed that living off the land in Alaska would change his life for good. In the end, however, Krakauer realizes that such a risky climb did nothing to truly change him. But Krakauer does begin to recognize a deep urge to test his limits and live on the edge. This is a trait that he believes McCandless possesses. The trait which makes him make unnecessary