Into_the_Wild

The Search of Chris McCandless “Chris was born into the wrong century. He was looking for more adventure and freedom than today’s society gives people” (Krakauer 174). Chris McCandless always has been different than everybody else and lived his life after his own ideals. In the novel Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer Chris McCandless tries to find who he is and what to do with his life. Although he agreed with the transcendentalists about their opinion of how one should live their life, the changes in society between the time when transcendentalists, like Thoreau or Emerson, created their philosophy and the time Chris McCandless lived made it sometimes simply not possible for him to actually live all the ideas he aimed. Chris McCandless, or Alexander Supertramp, how he used to call himself some time during his journey, has always been different than everybody else. He wanted to live his life to the fullest, to the best of his ability and how he thought it would be the best for him, not how somebody told him he has to live it. In the novel Into the Wild, Krakauer states “Alex admitted that the only food in his pack was a ten-pound bag of rice. His gear seemed exceedingly minimal for the harsh conditions of the interior, which in April still lay buried under the winter snowpack. Alex’s cheap leather hiking boots were neither waterproof nor well insulated. His rifle was only .22 caliber, he had no ax, no bug dope, no snowshoes, no compass” (5). Though he was very unprepared, and he knew that he was unprepared, to live a bigger amount of time in the Alaskan wilderness, he still wanted to go and none of the many people he met on his way could ever change his mind. Chris McCandless wants to live a life that reaches up to the expectations of a transcendentalist like Thoreau or Emerson would have had and he does everything that he thinks would have made the them proud. In his essay “Walden” Thoreau states “Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail” (145). A transcendentalist idea is to keep one’s affairs as low as possible to be able to actually live life and not just be in it. This is Chris’s big goal in life, after he is done with college; he tries to get rid of all his material possessions to life a pure life. In Into the Wild, Krakauer states “Then, in a gesture that would have made both Thoreau and Tolstoy proud, he arranged all his paper currency in a pile on the sand – a pathetic little stack of ones and fives and twenties – and put a match to it. One hundred twenty-three dollars in legal tender was promptly reduced to ash and smoke” (29). He uses every opportunity to shed unnecessary baggage that would just hinder him from living his dream, what means a life after transcendental guidelines. Unnecessary baggage has in the eyes of Chris and the transcendentalists the same impact on a human’s life as it does when somebody else has power about somebody else’s life. Everybody should own their own life. Nobody should have any power over somebody else’s life or should be able to tell anyone how to do anything. That was not just a transcendental opinion, it was also Chris’s. In his novel Into the Wild, Krakauer states “Was he aware that the vehicles registration had expired two years before and had not been renewed' Did he know that his driver’s license had also expired, and the vehicle was uninsured as well'” (28). Chris McCandless loved his old Datsun, but he did not care about the government and did everything to rebel against the government and he tried to go against any influence anyone could have on his life. He had to leave his beloved car behind because he let everything that could possible expire, but he did not see it as setback, he simply saw it as an additional way to get rid of ‘unnecessary baggage’. In his essay “Civil Disobedience” Thoreau states “… I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step towards obtaining it…” (381). A better government is a government that rules less and that was exactly what Chris expects from the society, the world he lives in. Though his classmates in high school and college and of course his parents, respected and followed rules society made, Chris was refusing to do it from his early childhood on, continuing through his adolescence and finally ending in his walking out of life, into the wild and living off the land. Chris McCandless always tried to live his life to the fullest and never miss out on anything. In the novel Into the Wild Krakauer states from a postcard Chris McCandless wrote to Wayne Westerberg “As for me, I’ve decided that I’m going to live this life for some time to come. The freedom and beauty of it is just too good to pass up” (33). Chris is always looking for what makes him really happy in life. He believes real, ultimate freedom is achievable by going out in the wilderness, enjoying the pure life and the advantages only nature can give humans. He believes that no one else can help him; he does not rely on anything or anybody else besides himself. In his novel Into the Wild Krakauer states “I’m going to have to be real careful not to accept any gifts from them in the future because they will think they have bought my respect” (21). Though his family is wealthy and willing to support him, he seems to be almost afraid of accepting anything from his parents, even the smallest things, because he wants to tackle life on his own, without any help. This proves again that he really tries to be a true transcendentalist, with everything he does, even in the smallest things. In his essay “Self-Reliance” Emerson states “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you; the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events” (366). Trust yourself and not giving into society’s pressure was a big deal in the transcendentalist’s world and Chris did his best to live up to this, by not accepting his parent’s help, and by donating 24,000 dollars, his whole college found. He did everything he thought would have made Emerson and Thoreau proud. Transcendentalists attach value to being alone and finding the inner self and the connection to nature. In his essay “Walden” Thoreau states “Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest” (145). Society has become too complex and fast-paced, everybody has to slow down and try to reconnect with what was there before, the “me” that was there before society had an impact on it. An honest man does not need anything more in life to be happy than the simplicity of nature and his own body. Anything else would just be a distraction and keep him from being one with the earth. During his journey, on his way to become a transcendentalist Chris realized more and more how important that seems to be for him to find his own freedom. In the novel Into the Wild Krakauer states “He was very to himself. He wasn’t antisocial – he always had friends, and everybody liked him – but he could go off and entertain himself for hours. He could be alone without being lonely” (107). Chris found his way in a hectic and complex society, even before he felt his need to live in Alaska, to be alone, and reconnect with the inner Chris and try to be a transcendentalist in a world who was not made for transcendentalists anymore. Chris McCandless did everything he could possibly do to reach up to a transcendental life in a society that has completely changed. Although he tried everything he thought would be necessary to come close to the expectations, he failed in the end, being a ‘real’ transcendentalist. Near to the end of the novel Into the Wild, at a point of time when Chris McCandless is already too weak to survive and make it out alive, Krakauer states “He is smiling in the picture, and there is no mistaking the look in his eyes: Chris McCandless was at peace, serene as a monk to God”(199). Chris McCandless found his freedom on his journey, something a lot of people will not find in a much longer life than Chris McCandless had, but in the end Chris had to realize that true luck and love can only be found in family, friends and it just grows when it gets shared. Making this realization too late, he was as good being a transcendentalist as he possibly could in the 20th century. He found his own peace and freedom but did not realize until the end what he was always missing and searching.