Wrapping up the Novel

Lisa Placek

English 9- Reds

26 March 2010

Chris McCandless: The hero that isolates himself for the wild….

By: Lisa Placek

Would you burn all your money, abandon your car, isolate yourself from your family, and become one with the wild? Chris McCandless did. Chris McCandless is a hero who was not trying to prove anything to anyone, he was not trying to make himself known, all he wanted to do was get away from human civilization and society to live and experience the wild. Some people think that this adventure was just a suicide mission, but his goal was to make it out alive. Chris McCandless accomplished many of his goals, but had an unfortunate mistake death that did not happen on purpose. Chris McCandless was not crazy, he was a hero who was trying to prove to no one except himself that he could make it out alive. 

The first reason I feel as if Chris is a hero rather than crazy is because he went out into the wild looking for freedom from the people and society. Jon Krakauer states that, “He invented a new life for himself, taking up residence at the ragged margin of our society, wondering across North America in search of raw, transcendent experience.” (1) Chris McCandless was simply a hero because he did risky things, but he took the chances. Chris McCandless is also a hero because he touched the people’s lives of whom he met.

The second reason I feel as if Chris was not just looking for a suicide mission is that he goal was not go into the wild to die and rot there, his goal was to experience nature and make it out alive. If Chris went out looking for a suicide mission, he would have not wrote an S.O.S note asking for help because he is weak, alone, and near death. The trip was a passion of his to see nature, not to look for a place to kill himself. Jan Burres say, “I thought Alex had lost his mind when he told us about his ‘great Alaskan odyssey,’ as he called it. But he was really excited about it. Couldn’t stop talking about the trip.”(45) He made friends along the way on his adventure. Each and every one of them grew a strong relationship with Chris. If Chris was just looking for a suicide mission, he would not have made connection with these people.

The third reason I feel as if Chris’ was smart in the decisions he made because he knew what he was getting himself into. Chris only brought a few items with him on the trip because he wanted to live strictly off nature. He told Jim Gallien, “I’m absolutely positive; I won’t run into anything I can’t deal with on my own.” (6) He did not want to take all these items with him into the wild because he rather lived off the land and try to provide for them.

Chris McCandless was a hero, not crazy. He was not going out on a suicide mission; he was looking for an adventure. Chris McCandless journey was to prove to himself that he could get out of nature. He did not care about society and human civilization; he just wanted to live off of the land. Would you have the guts to do what he did?