Into The Wild Summary

Plot Summary: In modern day Eastern America, the average American still holds the same core values and ideals. Early on in Into The Wild, it becomes apparent that Christopher Mccandless does not. Growing up in an affluent Washington D.C. suburb, he is a conservationist at heart who aspires to live off the land. Despite his enormous intellect and great grades, along with a college degree by the end of his educational career, McCandless still aspires to go on a trip of sorts, where he will travel around as the tide takes him, so to speak. On his post-collegiate trip he travels all across the continental United States, with at first with his own Datsun brand car and then, after ditching it near a pond, hitchhiking from city to city. We are taken along on a trip with all his travels included, going state to state and interesting place to interesting place. We meet people along the way, and are given an inside take into his emotional being and how the emotional being of Alex (his new unofficial name) fluctuates especially when given a challenge or a duty. And despite the journey that Alex goes along through the continental states, he is not satisfied. We meet …show more content…
He likes to make the things McCandless does seem more endearing than they are, and he tries to add a layer of suspense and adventure to the story that was probably unlike anything that Chris actually felt. What Chris wants from his life is obviously very different from what the author wants to write like, and arguably Krakauer went overboard. Despite this, he also seems to include elements of realism into his story, by over analyzing all of McCandless's actions and taking a very worldly view on them. Of course, Mccandless seems to want to be in the 1800s or 1700s, or even a caveman, with as simplistic a lifestyle as he leads. One could even argue that McCandless was sort of a romantic in the way that he lived his