Alicia kim's blog

Introduction:
Into the Wild is a non-fiction novel by Jon Krakauer, published in 1996. It is a novel about an actual event that happened to Christopher McCandless. The story of Into the Wild is a tragedy that happened to McCandless, a graduate of Emory University. This was made into a film in 2007.

Plot:
The Alaskan hunters found Christopher McCandless’s body. The FBI takes the body away. The author, Jon Krakauer, then interviews people who knew McCandless, such as Wayne Westerberg, who says McCandless was smart and determined. We learn about McCandless’s comfortable upbringing and how he disliked materialism. After graduating college, McCandless drove west, leaving his car and other possessions behind. He canoed down the Colorado River to Mexico, while his family tried to find him. McCandless then lived and worked in Arizona and California, before heading to Alaska. Krakauer interviews more people, like Ronald Franz, who became close to McCandless. Krakauer also compares McCandless to other adventurers who died in the wild. The story then focuses on McCandless’s final days in Alaska, where he died in an abandoned bus. Krakauer visits the bus and reflects on what could have led McCandless there. The book ends with Krakauer visiting the bus again with McCandless’s parents.

Analysis:
The novel demonstrates the theme of human relationships and contact. Specifically, no matter how much a person desires to live a separate life in the wild, the need for human contact is an inevitable force. Having rejected the idea of human contact for a long time will have fatal effect to everyone. This is shown through McCandless’s internal struggle between the longing for isolation and the desire to connect with the people around him. He despises his father and thinks their wealth and position is unnecessary. On his way into the wilderness, he meets people who care for him and tries to warn him about venturing alone, however, he is determined to be on his own social needs, instead seeking out an isolated existence, free of human contact. He leaves all of the people who care about him, the only thing he needs, behind. Maybe his father’s dishonesty and hypocrisy, to Christopher, is the reasons why he wants to be excluded from the social circles. McCandless travels alone, going back and forth between seeking human connection and then rejecting the relationships he makes. He meets people who help him, but he ultimately refuses their offers of care and support. At the climax, McCandless is stranded in an abandoned bus in the Alaskan wilderness. The bus, a symbol of human society, is what allows him to survive. But his denial to stay in contact with others leads to his tragic death from starvation. McCandless’s death could have been avoided if he had just been willing to accept human relationships. In the end, his family visits the bus where he died, showing how he was still connected to society, even in isolation.

Conclusion:
The novel, Into the Wild, is a non-fiction book by Jon Krakauer, published in 1996. It is a true event that happened to Christopher McCandless, a graduate of Emory University. He had hitchhiked from California to Arizona and ended up in tragedy. Jon Krakauer interviewed everyone who had any type of interaction with Chris McCandless and figured out the reasons why he went venturing to Alaska. The theme shown in this novel is human relationships and contact. He kept going back and forth between having someone to care for and support him and being isolated from society. The last minute of his life, which he spent in denial to stay in contact with his loved ones led the tragedy to strike in his life. Later, his family’s visit to the bus shows how they cared and loved him and that he was still connected somehow to society despite being physically apart from humans.