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