Jackie Mccandless Narcissism Analysis

As one reads about Walt and Billie McCandless, one can observe that part of what fueled Walt’s authoritarian parenting and Billie’s compliance with his way of parenting was their narcissism. This can definitely be observed when they are both at the bus where Chris died and Walt says “[he has] a lot of reasons for disliking Alaska” and Billie admits “[she hasn’t] prayed since [they] lost him” (Krakauer 202). These seemingly simple statements highlight Walt and Billie’s unwillingness to look inside themselves to see how some of the ways they treated or acted around Chris may have fueled his decision to go to Alaska in the first place. Instead, Walt just blames the state itself for being too ruthless. Billie just blames God for not protecting …show more content…
For instance, at one point in his employment at McDonalds, one of his coworkers tried to “tell him that he needed to take a bath more often” because “it wasn’t up to McDonald’s standards to come in smelling the way he did” (Krakauer 41). This ultimately leads to “[Chris] just walk[ing] out the door and quit[ting]” (Krakauer 41). Chris’s inability to accept even the tiniest amount of criticism displays his unwillingness to admit his flaws and mistakes no matter how small they were. He wanted to constantly view himself as being perfect and superior to those around him, which was because of the high standards his authoritarian father set for him. Chris’s father definitely set high standards for Chris as shown by a brief note Chris writes to his parents after getting all A’s on his final report card in college, which just says “Here is a copy of my final transcript. Gradewise things went pretty well and I ended up with a high cumulative average” (Krakauer 21). Chris acted like getting all A’s was no big deal which may demonstrate that that kind of excellence was always expected from him from his authoritarian family causing him to act the way he did to