Chris Mccandless Traits

Under the Wild A young man in his early twenties named Chris McCandless left home freshly graduated from college, and had found a certain thirst for the allure of the Alaskan wilderness, and subsequently perished upon achieving his dream. The details of his journey, as revealed in the novel Into the Wild, gave me an opportunity to compare the traits of McCandless to those of an old friend of mine, Luke. Luke, for context, is an ex-friend of mine that I met during the summer of 2020. I had been acquainted with him through a mutual friend, forming a group with three others. For the most part, he spends his time outdoors, either in the backyard or in the woods near his house. It was apparent that since the beginning he was an outlier from the rest of the group—all we did was play video games indoors—but he …show more content…
“—but he had been smitten by the vastness of the land, by the ghostly hue of the glaciers, by the pellucid subarctic sky,” (124). Luke found the outside to be almost untouched by man, with a natural glimmer that brought comfort from authority, whether it be from society and its norms, the government and its laws, or their parents and their expectations. The length of their stints on the outside is one of their greatest differences. McCandless was a full legal adult, and therefore could not be compelled to return home, whether be by academics or family, and chose to leave permanently from Emory University. Luke did not share the same amount of freedoms, with his journeys typically being rebellious acts of sneaking out and facing prompt reprimands. Being stuck indoors surrounded by people he hated cultivated a deep pessimism, which was a stark contrast to McCandless’s optimism. McCandless to the end remained positive and pushed forward to his dreams, converting the damage in his past to his drive to move