Was the argument that young men are drawn to high risk activities presented well throughout Into the Wild? Yes, the book follows a young man, Chris McCandless, who expresses an unhealthy amount of monomania for the wild, and many believed that he was mentally ill. However the author, Jon Krakauer, believed otherwise. There were many young men before McCandless’s time that expressed this same obsession. Although, there were many young men that shared this enthusiasm, Krakauer made sure that the reader knew that McCandless was a special case.
Krakauer begins his argument in chapter eight (Alaska), where he explains that there has been dozens of cases just like McCandless where young men go into the bush never to reappear again. “Like Rosellini and Waterman, McCandless was a seeker and had impractical fascination with the harsh side of nature. Like Waterman and McCunn, he displayed a staggering paucity of common sense.” (pg 85). Krakauer tells the cases of Rosellini, Waterman, …show more content…
That year, Chris found out, and he uncovered more as the years went by. This slowly disintegrated him and his father’s relationship. “Chris’s relations with his parents…deteriorated significantly…Walt and Billie had no idea why.” (pg 121). Their relationship was kind of dysfunctional from the start as Chris would never tell his parents anything and always kept to himself, but it was not anything serious. “’If something bothered him, he wouldn’t come right out and say it. He’d keep it to himself, harboring his sentiment, letting the bad feelings build and build.’” (pg 122). This was an immature move on Chris’s part, he should have talked to his dad about it instead of bottling it up. How would Walt know about what Chris was feeling? This is based off of personal experience, one should always talk out their