Conformity In Mccandless And Thoreau's Into The Wild

Register to read the introduction… The idea of conformity presented in Into the Wild and Where I Lived and What I Lived For is one of complete denial, and that the only way to live is to escape from “corrupt” and “materialistic” society. Although the idea of non-conformity is presented similarly in both texts, they also vary in the level of extremity. In Into the Wild, McCandless, the main character in Into the Wild didn’t live a life of complete seclusion from society, unlike Thoreau. McCandless was accustomed to small societies that opposed the larger American society such as the several small towns he visited on his journey, such as the Carthage community, and “Oh-My-God Hot Springs”. A similar belief between McCandless and Thoreau was one of non-conformity, expressed in one of Thoreau’s metaphors, “Still we live meanly, like ants; though the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men;”(Thoreau 1) McCandless deeply related to that belief as shown in one of his letters that he wrote to Ron Franz. In that letter, he writes, “Ron, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will first appear to you crazy, but once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty,” (Krakauer 57) showing his belief that American society is full of ants/followers and you need to live by your own standards, not society’s, parallel to Thoreau’s …show more content…
A similar belief between Thoreau and McCandless and Krakauer is the idea of looking at the bigger picture of life, and not living on the small, little details of it. Quotes between Into The Wild and Where I Lived And What I Lived For that show similar ideas are “If we do not get our sleepers, and forge rails, and devote days and nights to the work, but go to tinkering upon our lives to improve them, who will build railroads? And if railroads are not built, how shall we get to heaven in season?”(Thoreau 2) and another quote from McCandless’ “I fear that you will follow this same inclination [bolting back to his house to live the same repetitive life] in the future and thus fail to discover all the wonderful things that God has placed around us to discover.”(Krakauer 57) Overall, Krakauer, McCandless and Thoreau share the same ideas of non-conformity, opposition of materialism and elitism, and living life in the big