Chris Mccandless In The Wild Reflective Essay

Improved Essays
Throughout the semester we have been taught nothing more than Transcendentalism and

about how Chris McCandless survived months on end until he ate the wrong thing one day. To

me Transcendentalism means letting go of everything, such as technology, to go back into the

nature or roots that our founding fathers had to endure. Chris McCandless before this semester

meant nothing to me because I had never heard of him or even knew that someone had done

something like this. I think that this proves what Emerson and Thoreau were trying to say that

the society today would never dream of letting the things that we believe are a necessity go. Did

Chris McCandless live a life that was keeping with the Transcendentalist principles outlined and

described
…show more content…
McCandless in the wild did everything to this best of his ability from the beginning

of his time. From day one he did everything he could to get to the Alaskan Plains whether or not

people told him it was a good or bad idea to go. McCandless was determined to make it to

Alaska on his journey and never keeping more money than needed. Both Emerson and Thoreau

were nonconformists in their way of living which, I think, influenced McCandless greatly. In the

four months that he was in the wild he managed to survive everything that nature threw at him.

Having a bus as shelter helped greatly when he was there but when he wasn’t he was left to the

arms of nature and whatever happened either rain or hail he survived. Now to say that he was

foolish to stay out there so long may be a statement that some would make but I would bet that

Emerson or Thoreau would have been very proud to see him endure the wild. McCandless did

take a sudden turn in his life from that of a privileged boy to one who survived on his own with

nothing more than little supplies for a month. The people that took him places and gave him a

little silence also tried and persuaded him to stray from the task that he was trying to head

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