When his son died several years ago in a car accident, Ronald Franz went off the rails and developed a drinking problem; however, after meeting Chris, Ronald started to feel better and less lonely. He felt such a strong connection that as Ron was driving Chris into the wild, he asked Chris if “[he] could adopt him, if he would be [his] grandson. McCandless, [however,] uncomfortable with the request, dodged the question” (55). Asking such a sensitive question took a lot of courage for Ronald, and Chris just completely ignored it without even thinking how much it could hurt him. By using the word “dodged”, Krakauer gives the reader an idea of how Chris completely disregarded Ron and pretended not to hear him. When someone dodges a question, he/she really doesn’t want to answer it, which is what Chris felt like. However, neglecting Ron’s question is disrespectful, hurtful, and selfish, because Chris was only thinking about himself and how he felt, not how Ron would feel. Moreover, several days after the uncomfortable interaction between Ron and Chris, Ron dropped Chris off at his destination for going out into the wild. Instead of feeling sad that he was leaving yet another person behind, Chris felt
Relieved that he had again evaded the impending threat of human intimacy, of friendship, …show more content…
Jan Burres, Ronald Franz, and his parents all suffered incredible heartache from Chris’s inconsiderable actions. By first characterizing Chris as warmhearted but then disputing that claim by presenting him as egotistical, Krakauer exposes the idea that people are complex beings who are not always who they seem for they often exhibit both positive and negative actions . Ultimately, Krakauer elucidates that it is the sum of one’s actions, rather than each individual act, that defines a person’s