Chris’ History in into the Wild

Chris McCandless' death sparked an uproar in popularity all over the nation. In the novel Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, the author tried to unveil Chris' history and purpose for going into the wild. The audience learns the backstory of Chris and get to know about how memorable Chris' personality was to the individuals he met on his way to Alaska. Chris was an interesting person who was well educated, social, impatient, anti materialistic, independent, hard working, stubborn, and lacked common sense; but most importantly, McCandless wanted to live his life instead of just existing before he can be satisfied with life. Despite having a variety of personality traits, Chris and I are similar and different in several ways.

The novel contains two connected plots that are dependent upon one another in order to advance the plot entirely. One focuses on Chris' actions such as him burning his money, and another that develops the psychological portrait of Chris that explains why he did a certain action. The first plot focuses on Chris' journey into the wild, and the second looks at the development of Krakauer's understanding of Chris by speaking to people that knew Chris. The second plot also gives the reader knowledge about Chris' personality and lets the reader know how Chris thought and expressed his thinking. Every chapter is a new location Chris has been to or is approaching towards. As the novel progresses, the reader learns more about Chris' personality and his thought process through series of events that occur to him. Krakauer makes an appearance once in a while in some chapters to advance the plot while also studying Chris' motives.

A trait the both of us have in common is we're both anti materialistic. Two Christmases ago, my family and I contributed into helping a family whose house had burned down and we sacrificed gifts for the happiness and well-being of another family in need. The materialistic gifts didn't affect me in any way at all, seeing the smiles on the family's face was the only Christmas gift my family wanted. In Chapter 4, Chris' anti materialistic trait can be seen when McCandless arrived in Detrital Wash and got caught up in a flash flood. His engine got damaged and decided to leave all his belongings in his car and the car itself. Chris burned his cash and buried his rifle so he can retrieve them later in the future. Chris also decided to donate 25,000 dollars from his savings to OXFAM charity instead of buying a brand new car.

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