The biggest (and most obvious) difference between Jon and Chris is that one died living out his dream and the other lived to walk away from it. This anger fueled them to rebel and go against their fathers wishes to make their own futures. I think both sons were consumed by a sort of blind rage when they found out that their fathers were less than perfect. Just like Chris's father Lewis Krakauer had already begun to prepare him for a career that he didn't want to be any part of. Though his parents and sister loved him Chris secretly despised his parents for covering up the fact that his father had been raising two separate families. So in this way Jon and Chris were alike even though their goals were different.Īnother way the two were similar was the fact that they both had family problems. Jon did this by many other smaller climbs and Chris worked his way up by studying nature books and roaming across the U.S. Both men had to gradually work their way up to accomplishing their goals.

To be fair to Chris I'm sure Krakauer didn't start off by just one day deciding he would climb the Devils Thumb after he was inspired by making it up the climbing wall at the local county fair. I think it would have been quite a feat just for Chris to have been able to live off the land in a local forest.

Fortunately his father had taken him on hiking trips so he was at least somewhat familiar with the wilderness but in no way was he prepared at all for the severity of the Alaskan wilderness. Raised by a wealthy family and just graduating from Emory University I feel he wasn't as prepared as he could have been. Each man was aware of the risks, but were they equally prepared when each began their own adventure? I feel that Chris McCandless was at a disadvantage when he first started off. Ones dream was to live off the land in the remote regions of Alaska, the other too climb the Devils Thumb, a mountain peak that had never been scaled by man. Both gave up most of their possessions to go after a dream they had. So I asked the question, 'How does Krakauer's life parallel Chris McCandlesses?'Ĭhris and Jon's life have many parallels and contrasts at the same time. If he had walked away from his adventure like Krakauer, people would have praised him rather than ridicule. Then I realized it was quite possible that the reason people thought he was crazy was because he had died trying to fulfill his dream. I began to ask myself if Chris really wasn't as crazy as some people thought. He was said by some to have a death wish, but wanting to die and wanting to see what one is capable of are too very different things. When McCandless's mistakes turn out to be fatal he is dismissed for his naivetÐ¹. What he finds is the intense pull of the wilderness on our imagination, the appeal of high-risk activities to young men. Bordering on obsession, Krakauer looks for the clues to the mystery that is Chris McCandless. Jon Krakauer constructed a journalistic account of McCandless's story.

Four months later, his body was found in an abandoned bus. He burned all the cash he had in his wallet, and created a new life. He gave $25,000 of his savings to charity, left his car and nearly all of his possessions. In April of 1992 a young man named Chris McCandless, from a prosperous and loving family, hitchhiked across the country to Alaska.

Into the wild book analysis