For instance, there is a sense that Walt never really tried to understand why Chris decided to run off into the wild especially when Walt asks after Chris’s death “how is it . . . that a kid with so much compassion could cause his parents so much pain?” (Krakauer 104) This indicates that Walt does not view Chris’s decision as a task his son felt he had to do maybe to heal past wounds. At one point at the end of his travels, Chris does write “happiness only real when shared,” which Krakauer indicates could have meant Chris “was ready, perhaps, to shed a little of the armor he wore around his heart” (Krakauer 189). However, Walt misses this. He only views the death of his son as caused by Chris deciding to stray from his authoritarian father’s set path as a negative consequence that hurt him
For instance, there is a sense that Walt never really tried to understand why Chris decided to run off into the wild especially when Walt asks after Chris’s death “how is it . . . that a kid with so much compassion could cause his parents so much pain?” (Krakauer 104) This indicates that Walt does not view Chris’s decision as a task his son felt he had to do maybe to heal past wounds. At one point at the end of his travels, Chris does write “happiness only real when shared,” which Krakauer indicates could have meant Chris “was ready, perhaps, to shed a little of the armor he wore around his heart” (Krakauer 189). However, Walt misses this. He only views the death of his son as caused by Chris deciding to stray from his authoritarian father’s set path as a negative consequence that hurt him