Into the Wild Book Report
A New Life “In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley.
His name was Christopher Johnson Mcandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. ” Into The Wild is a book about a young man who travels across some of the most unforgiving terrain to find his place in life.
He travels through the tough Alaskan landscape running from Christopher Johnson Mcandless, and embracing the new life that is slowly coming to him. As Chris runs away from his family, and travels along vast areas of terrain, he makes a new name for himself.
He wants to be remembered as a man who earned his place in life, and didn’t have it given to him. That’s why on April of 1992 he left is pampered life and traveled into the wild in search of his new life. Chris left a life behind that any normal American would die for.
He had graduate college with good grades, and had everything going for him that any newly graduate college student would ever want. Chris had money, a car, a college degree and a great life. “He had spent the previous four years, as he saw it, preparing to fulfill an absurd and onerous duty: to graduate from college.
At long last he was unencumbered, emancipated from the stifling world of his parents and peers, a world of abstraction and security and material excess, a world in witch he felt grievously cut off from the raw throb existence” (Krakauer Pg22).
I believe Chris left his perfect life behind because he did not want all the pressure that was associated with it. Even prior to his disappearance from his family and friends he had planned out the whole thing. “He had spent the previous four years, as he saw it, preparing” (Krakauer Pg22). Chris had his new life planned out before he was living it. When Chris left Atlanta on his life long journey he started his new life.
He left his parents behind and almost all of his possessions. There was no stopping him now. He had his mind made up and there was no changing it. Driving west out of Atlanta, he intended to invent an utterly new life for himself, one in which he would be free to wallow in unfiltered experience. To symbolize the complete severance from his previous life, he even adopted a new name.
No longer would he answer to Chris McCandless; he was now Alexander Super tramp, master of his own destiny. ” (Krakauer Pg22-23) As far a Chris was concerned Christopher Johnson McCandless was dead. There was no more Chris as long as he was concerned his name was Alex and that was it.
There was no college degree, no parents, no luxuries or free money. From now on he worked for everything he needed to survive and he started his new life bound for new territory.
When Chris finally arrived to his new home and eventually his final resting place, he was ecstatic. He had made it to his destination that he had been wondering for since his first days in college. He had been through allot to get to the bus, it was just more satisfying to him because of that very reason, he didn’t need any help.
Now he could focus on other more important things. “He was elated to be there, inside the bus, on a sheet of weathered plywood spanning a broken window, McCandless scrawled an exultant declaration of independence: Two years he walks the earth, no phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes, ultimate freedom, and extremist, an aesthetic voyager whose home is the road.
Escaped from Atlanta. Thou Shalt Not Return, ‘cause “The West Is The Best. ” And now after two rambling years comes to the final and greatest adventure.
The Climatic battle to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual revolution. Ten days and nights of freight trains and hitchhiking bring him to the great white north.
No longer to be poisoned by civilization he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become Lost In The Wild” (Alexander Supertramp a. k. a Chris Mcandless Pg163) Chris had made a new name for himself and a new life by defeating the tough Alaskan wilderness and by finding his new home.
He had succeeded in his great plan to get away from society and become a man of nature and not have to rely on the everyday things that most everyone else has too. His plan had been a great success. As I learn more about into the wild I come to realize that I my-self am trying to make a new name and a new life just like Chris did.
I had 2 choices when I graduated high school, to either get a low paying job a live a life that I wouldn’t enjoy, or to attend a college that would give me the opportunity to have a job that I enjoy.
In a sense Chris had the same two choices to live a life that he wouldn’t enjoy, or to make a new life for himself and live the way he enjoyed. As Chris was scrutinized for his abstract looks on life and for his choice to live a new life and make a new life for himself. I come to realize that everyone has done the same as Chris somewhere in their lives. It’s just that not all of us can recognize were we belong into the great world. That’s when we will hear the call of the wild.
A NEW LIFE Into The Wild Book Report Jon Krakauer. Into The Wild. Villard Books. New York: Villard. 1996
