Christopher Johnson McCandless went on a grand adventure, but did not come back to regale the experiences he had to his friends and family. His death was the talk of the nation for a short while, so there are many opinions about Chris’s actions. Some think he just had to be insane to do what he did. Others put him up on a pedestal, and admire him for his courage. My opinion is that Chris was not crazy, he was just a stupid, inexperienced, arrogant boy who wanted to prove he could survive on his own in the wild. McCandless was an educated man. After all, he, “graduat[ed], with honors, from Emory University in the summer of 1990.” (Author’s Note) But the one thing he lacked was common sense. An example is his good deed of donating the rest of his college fund, which consisted of $25,000, to a charity
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He actually thought that he could live in the Alaskan wilderness by himself. He even named himself “Alexander,” after Alexander the Great, and his last name “Supertramp,” because he thought of himself as the greatest of all the tramps, or homeless people. How ridiculous is that?! He also decided that he didn’t need a map on his adventure in the vast forests of Alaska. If he had had a map with him he would have noticed, “That half a mile downstream, in the throat of the canyon, is a gauging station that was built by the U.S. Geographical Survey.” (Page 173) Near this gauging station, there was a cable carrying a metal basket large enough to carry men across the Teklanika River. He could have save himself, if only he weren’t such an arrogant boy. Chris McCandless may have been stupid, inexperienced, and arrogant, but crazy he was not. One can understand his thirst for adventure, for it is the nature of men. But I think there is something we can all agree upon; he died content with how he lived his life. “I HAVE HAD A HAPPY LIFE AND THANK THE LORD. AND MAY GOD BLESS ALL!” (Page 199) – Christopher “Alexander Supertramp”
He actually thought that he could live in the Alaskan wilderness by himself. He even named himself “Alexander,” after Alexander the Great, and his last name “Supertramp,” because he thought of himself as the greatest of all the tramps, or homeless people. How ridiculous is that?! He also decided that he didn’t need a map on his adventure in the vast forests of Alaska. If he had had a map with him he would have noticed, “That half a mile downstream, in the throat of the canyon, is a gauging station that was built by the U.S. Geographical Survey.” (Page 173) Near this gauging station, there was a cable carrying a metal basket large enough to carry men across the Teklanika River. He could have save himself, if only he weren’t such an arrogant boy. Chris McCandless may have been stupid, inexperienced, and arrogant, but crazy he was not. One can understand his thirst for adventure, for it is the nature of men. But I think there is something we can all agree upon; he died content with how he lived his life. “I HAVE HAD A HAPPY LIFE AND THANK THE LORD. AND MAY GOD BLESS ALL!” (Page 199) – Christopher “Alexander Supertramp”