Decomposition In Into The Wild

The Decomposition of Self-Discovery Lao Tzu once said, “At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.” This quote speaks volumes regarding the individual and their own beliefs. However, there are definitely limitations and boundaries to the desires of some people. In the nonfiction novel, “Into the Wild,” (1996) author Jon Krakauer asserts that Chris McCandless was not just some dumb kid who got himself killed in the Alaskan wilderness. Krakauer supports this assertion by giving the reader insight into Chris’ motives for taking the trip, hoping to influence the reader into believing that Chris was actually somewhat intelligent with his reasoning. Krakauer also included into the novel his own first-hand account of an adventure into the Alaskan wilderness very similar to that of Chris. He uses his own experience to try to rationalize Chris’ actions and motives because he can relate Chris’ thought process to that of his own at the time. However, Krakauer’s intervention and overall mentality about Chris is …show more content…
Krakauer made the catastrophic error of writing the book from a very biased point of view, therefore clouding the overall message of the novel. Krakauer was very wrong with his opinion of Chris, because of his bias towards outdoorsmen like him. Chris McCandless is much more of an inconsiderate fool because even though he was following his “dreams,” in reality he was just a dumb kid who wanted to escape from a loving and caring family that he wanted nothing to do with. Peter Christian was right in saying that kids like Chris aren’t heroes by any means, but the rescue teams that save these kids are. Chris’ inner drive and stubbornness was his real problem. As Floriano Martins put it, “The deeper I go into myself, the more I realize that I am my own