Introduction
People can often be quick to deem non-fiction books as boring or unentertaining; however, some of the greatest stories penned in ink have indeed been true events. For example, The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom, The Discoverers by Daniel J. Boorstin, and Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer are a few fascinating nonfiction books. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer is an especially captivating novel. Based on a true story, Into the Wild is about the life of an adventurous young man named Chris McCandless, who died while living in the Alaskan wilderness. Jon Krakauer is able to write in such a way that he takes every detail of the life of McCandless, and he uses these details to help the reader better understand the enigma of his character. In addition to being the author of Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer is also an investigative journalist, an avid mountain climbing adventurer, and the author of eight books (Krakauer 216). Due to the immense popularity of Into the Wild, many adventurers have traveled to visit the infamous Fairbanks Bus 142 to see where Chris McCandless died. Since many have been journeying to the Fairbanks Bus, which is in an unsafe location, it was removed by the Alaskan National Guard in June 2020 (Meilhan and Holcombe). The story that Jon Krakauer wrote about McCandless has inspired others to adopt unconventional lives, seek adventure, and look past the materialistic culture that surrounds us all. Throughout Into the Wild, the reader is able to observe the eloquent detail of Krakauer’s writing and his personal connection to the story of Chris McCandless.
Overview
In his work Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer brings to light the sinful nature of humans. Several of the people mentioned, including Chris McCandless himself, let their sins get the better of them. McCandless is arrogant, prideful, and stubborn. He lets his negative emotions take hold of him like a terrible disease. In the end, these weaknesses play a major role in his death. Krakauer shows how sin can both ruin and destroy the bond between father and son. Krakauer uses his relationship with his own father and the relationship between McCandless and his father to reveal how important it is for young boys to have an honest father figure in their lives. “After Chris unearthed the particulars of Walt’s divorce, two years passed before his anger began to leak to the surface, but leak it eventually did. The boy could not pardon the mistakes his father had made as a young man and he was even less willing to pardon the attempt at concealment.” (Krakauer 122). When McCandless found out that his father was a bigamist, anger raged inside of him causing him to become withdrawn from his family and society. Krakauer goes on to compare his own fractured relationship with his father in order to show his readers how he personally relates to Chris McCandless. “My father crossed the line into madness and then very nearly succeeded in taking his own life-an act at which he made sure I was present.” (Krakauer 149). Krakauer’s father was a drug addict, while McCandless’s father was an adulterer. After Krakauer discusses the brokenness of both his and McCandless’s relationships with their fathers, Krakauer shows how his anger towards his own father pushed him to go into the wild. “The old walrus in fact managed to instill in me a great burning ambition; it had simply found expression in an unintended pursuit. He never understood that Devil's Thumb was the same as medical school, only different.” (Krakauer 150). Perhaps, Krakauer uses this example of his corrupt father to shed light on why McCandless chooses to leave his family behind and take on the lifestyle of a hobo. Another point Krakauer makes is that man is an adventurous being striving to complete the challenges he sets before himself. He even shows how his adventurous spirit led him to accomplish astonishing feats, like making a solo climb up an incredibly dangerous mountain (Krakauer 144). Yet another point that Krakauer makes is regarding the complexity of human nature. There is no way to know for certain what truly made McCandless choose to live and act in the manner that he did. People can definitely try to come up with a singular reason that he chose to live an unconventional life, but it is more than likely that Chris McCandless had several different factors that drove him to choose the lifestyle he lived such as his broken relationship with his father. Krakauer does an excellent job of discussing the importance of a strong father-son relationship, showing how man strives for adventure, and providing several motives for McCandless’s strange behavior.
Structure
Unlike other novels, Krakauer begins McCandless’s story at the end of his life instead of the beginning. Starting a story backward seems odd, even crazy. Krakauer; however, does an excellent job laying out the life of McCandless. By starting out with his death, Krakauer is able to grab his reader’s attention and draw them in, making the reader eager to read each page to see how he will format the next chapter. Even though the author starts the story backward, he fills the gaps throughout the entirety of the book. Overall, the way that Into the Wild is written is extremely effective and makes the reader excited to see which literary choice Krakauer will use next.
Strategies
Throughout the whole story, there were multiple flashbacks about Chris McCandless’s life. Krakauer used these flashbacks to help his reader better understand McCandless’s early life, his family relationships, and his interactions with others to show how they played an important role in why he chose to live the way he did. The flashbacks for the reader of Into the Wild are insightful and help make better sense of McCandless’s perplexing personality. The use of flashbacks in the book Into the Wild shows the creativity and uniqueness of Jon Krakauer’s writing skills.
Krakauer chooses to mention a handful of notable adventurers, backwoodsmen, and vagabonds in order to draw comparisons between their lives and the life of Chris McCandless. Everett Ruesses is one of these men. Just like McCandless, Ruesses wrote extremely romanticized notes.“....I’ll never stop wandering. And when the time comes to die, I’ll find the wildest, loneliest, most desolate spot there is.” (Krakauer 94). This was a letter Ruesses wrote during his lifestyle as a vagrant. By comparing Ruesses and others with McCandless, it is easy to pick out similarities and differences. In mentioning the adventures of other men, the reader not only reads about their fascinating lifestyle choices but is also better able to see what made McCandless choose the life that he led.
It is easily seen that Krakauer compared Chris’s life to his own. Both men grew up in households with father figures that were dishonorable. McCandless’s father was a bigamist, while Krakauer’s was suicidal. This obviously caused issues for both men and they each coped with the absence of a strong father figure in a similar way. McCandless denied living the wealthy lifestyle of his parents and sold almost everything he had to become an independent adventurer. At the same time, Krakauer pushed himself to climb a perilous mountain in Alaska known as Devil’s Thumb. The reader sees how Krakauer is drawn to the life of McCandless because he is able to relate and draw comparisons between his own life.
Closing
In conclusion, Jon Krakauer is an effective writer who knows how to grasp the attention of his reader. Krakauer’s book is thoughtfully constructed, written with careful detail, and an intriguing read. Even though Krakauer started his book in an unusual manner, beginning with McCandless’s death, he used his creative writing techniques to draw his readers in and to hold their attention throughout the book’s entirety. By using effective strategies like flashbacks and comparison, the author was better able to help his reader understand the character of McCandless. A weakness of Krakauer’s is his unwillingness to recognize that McCandless may have been mentally ill. Overall, Krakauer does an excellent job of writing about the unusually adventurous life of Chris McCandless. Into the Wild is an emotional read that challenges the reader to look past the materialistic world of today.
Works Cited
Meilhan, Pierre, and Madeline Holcombe. “Alaska's 'into the Wild' Bus, Known as a Deadly Tourist Lure, Has Been Removed by Air.” CNN, Cable News Network, 19 June 2020, https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/alaska-into-the-wild-bus-removed-trnd/index.html.
Krakauer, Jon. Into the Wild. Anchor Books, 1996.
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