It is apparent, even before reading either Into the Wild or Walden, that Henry David Thoreau and Chris McCandless are both men who have a love for nature. Not everyone can say that they even particularly like nature and the outdoors, but these two men truly found the beauty of the wild. When reading both books, the reader finishes with an entirely different view on life. Both men were very much alike (believing in a lot of similar things and behaving in similar ways), but they did have their differences.
Thoreau and McCandless both went into the woods to take away unnecessary things and find the true importance of life, and they both tried to change the things they found lacking in society and the world, but McCandless saw more importance …show more content…
Such as when he said on slavery, “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also prison”. In the book he says, “One afternoon, near the end of the first summer, when I went to the village to get a shoe from the cobbler’s, I was seized and put into jail, because, as I have elsewhere related, I did not pay a tax to, or recognize the authority of, the state which buys and sells men, women, and children, like cattle at the door of its senate house” (Thoreau 111). As you can see, Thoreau was so sturdy in his beliefs and morals that he was willing to not pay his taxes and risk going to jail. Even back then, when a lot of America either was for slavery or didn’t have much of an opinion either way, Thoreau was not shaken. He strongly stood for what he believed in. Just like Chris …show more content…
Chris rather liked people. He never had any problem befriending someone, even making friends on his journey across the country. As I said before, he would help complete strangers by giving them food and talking to them. After his adventure in Alaska, Chris had planned to perhaps settle down and assimilate himself back into society. Unfortunately, he never got to do this, but this shows that he did not have a problem with people. Chris wrote, “Happiness only real when shared” (189). It was because of his trek into the Alaskan woods Chris finally realized that when living life alone happiness could not be fully
Thoreau and McCandless both went into the woods to take away unnecessary things and find the true importance of life, and they both tried to change the things they found lacking in society and the world, but McCandless saw more importance …show more content…
Such as when he said on slavery, “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also prison”. In the book he says, “One afternoon, near the end of the first summer, when I went to the village to get a shoe from the cobbler’s, I was seized and put into jail, because, as I have elsewhere related, I did not pay a tax to, or recognize the authority of, the state which buys and sells men, women, and children, like cattle at the door of its senate house” (Thoreau 111). As you can see, Thoreau was so sturdy in his beliefs and morals that he was willing to not pay his taxes and risk going to jail. Even back then, when a lot of America either was for slavery or didn’t have much of an opinion either way, Thoreau was not shaken. He strongly stood for what he believed in. Just like Chris …show more content…
Chris rather liked people. He never had any problem befriending someone, even making friends on his journey across the country. As I said before, he would help complete strangers by giving them food and talking to them. After his adventure in Alaska, Chris had planned to perhaps settle down and assimilate himself back into society. Unfortunately, he never got to do this, but this shows that he did not have a problem with people. Chris wrote, “Happiness only real when shared” (189). It was because of his trek into the Alaskan woods Chris finally realized that when living life alone happiness could not be fully