Stampede Trail

Teresa Loutfi Professor Gualtieri Humanities 20th Century 13 July 2017 Existentialism in Into the Wild Into the Wild based on the nonfictional novel by Jon Krakauer was adapted into a film by Sean Penn in the year 2007. The film focuses on the life of twenty-three-year-old Chris McCandless whom after graduating college rejects his family, wealthily upbringing, identity and potential of becoming a lawyer in order to travel across the United…

It is not difficult to find the tale of a golden child gone awry in not only literature, but life as well. However, in the book Into the Wild, author Jon Krakauer captures this stale premise in a way that in compelling, understandable, and above all, trustworthy: a rarity in the world of nonfiction. Into the Wild revolves around the life of Chris McCandless, but it is very much a personal story, made so not only by the author incorporating McCandless’s family in the suffering and loss of their…

he could make it on his own. According to this Epigraph, “I [John Haines] faced in myself a passionate and tenacious longing— to put away thought forever, and all the trouble it brings, all but the nearest desire, direct and searching. To take the trail and not look back” (Krakauer 88). One can assume Jon Krakauer included this quote because he wanted to relate John Haines’ experience to the thoughts Chris McCandless wrote in his numerous diary entries. Just like Chris McCandless, John Haines…

Chris McCandless, a 24 year old young man found dead in a van in the middle of Alaska. He was a smart, transcendentalist, college graduate who believed it was best to live life alone and in the wilderness. For two years McCandless through his journeys met many people who helped him get to Alaska. Chris McCandless was very confident that he would be able to live in Alaska alone and would not take anyones advice. Many individuals in the world are overly confident when talking about their jobs,…

The stories of Chris McCandless and Timothy Treadwell’s journeys to Alaska, provokes the common person to ask at the end of it all: Are they men that people should look up to, or are they just individuals who bit off a little more than they could chew? The author of Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer, reveals Chris McCandless to be an introvert who feels the need to remove himself from a typical life in society and begin his own adventures to figure out who he really is. In an effort to show the issues…

The book, Into the Wild, features Christopher McCandless, a young man who dies at the age of twenty-four from his adventure into the state of Alaska. Throughout his journey, McCandless suffers through the hardships of the wild but still manages to find alternative ways in order to achieve his goal. With his own ideas to create something out of nothing, he develops independency. McCandless demonstrates the values of the American spirit to an extent because he perseveres through all the obstacles…

The arguing had gotten to be enough, the feeling of everything always being his fault was just starting to go in one ear and right out the other. He was then left feeling so hopeless. In Jon Krakauer's story Into the Wild readers experiences and are left with some many questions. Including, if we should categorize McCandless as being a successful, goal achieving human being. Of course, everyone has their own opinions on whether McCandless was an example of success while entering the Alaskan…

Wilderness; To McCandless and many other people, it has a very special and specific allure. While to most it is a lawless and dangerous place, McCandless sees the wilderness as a pure state where the evils of modern society don’t exist. This is a place where someone like him can live by his own rules and only be dependent on himself. And for McCandles this was what compelled him to live in and of the wilderness. Although McCandless journal entries depict that he does receive some answers for his…

The novel, Into the Wild, written by Jon Krakauer, is a riveting, cautionary tale about the death of Chris McCandless, a young man who embarks on a journey to Alaska to seek the truth of happiness through the solitude of nature and free himself from the constraints of society. No doubt, the ongoing theme throughout Krakauer’s novel is the dysfunctional father-son relationship between Chris and his dad. In fact, McCandless died before he had the chance to grow out of his anger. Into the Wild…

Into the Wild vs Walden Into the Wild, a book about a man who ran away from childhood problems and decided to walk into the wilderness by himself after getting rid of all of his materialistic items including his car and money, and Walden, a book about a man who fled towards simplicity and solitude to understand what life was really about, are two incredible books. The stories are timeless and will likely still be talked about in fifty years. The protagonists, Thoreau and Chris, shared many…