INTO+THE+WILD



= Author Background = John Krakauer Born in 1954 Grew up in Corvallis, Oregon Graduated from Hampshire College in 1976 Spent time in Alaska, Colorado, and Pacific Northwest as a and commercial salmon fisherman. Then spent two decades focusing on mountain climbing. Climbed Mt. Everest, but a storm took the lives of 4 of his 5 teammates on the summit. John wrote __//Into The Wild//__ more or less about his own personal life. His father introduced him to the wild but was also very controlling. John broke away from his dad as he got older and wanted to explore nature while his father was very wealthy and wanted to John to have good job.

= Summary = In April 1992 a young man from a wealthy family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. Chris had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and turned over a new leaf. Four months later, a moose hunter found a very decomposed, very dead body. The body was of Chris McCandless, and how he came to die makes Into The Wild a story of a lifetime. In 1991, Chris McCandless was a college grad with a promising future. But instead he roamed through the West and Southwest on “vision” quest like those of his heroes Jack London and John Muir. In the Mojave Desert he abandoned his car, stripped it of its license plates, and burned all of his cash. Without worry of money and belongings, along with his new name Alex Supertramp, he was free to carve a new path in the raw environments of nature. Not even using a map, Chris, left his family behind and vanish into the wild. Jon Krakauer constructs a descriptive document through which he reassembles the disturbing facts of McCandless's short life. With an obsessive interest in Chris, Krakauer searches for the clues to the reasons that compelled him to leave his life. Digging deeply, he takes an compelling mystery and unravels the larger riddles it holds: the pull of the American wilderness on our imagination; the allure of high-risk activities to young men of a certain cast of mind; the complex, charged bond between fathers and sons McCandless ends up dying, but reasons are not obvious. The most common belief is that he was poisoned by the mold growing on a flora plant he ate. This mistake was fatal, and made headlines everywhere and was dismissed for his naïve pretensions and hubris. Some said he had a death wish, but wanting to die is very different from being compelled to look over the edge. Krakauer brings McCandless's quest out of the shadows, and the peril, adversity, and refusal sought by this enigmatic young man are illuminated with a rare understanding. John Krakauer is a unique author and Into The Wild is a masterpiece. = SETTING = The setting of the story mostly takes place throughout the 1980's and 90's in the western half of the US, Alaska, Mexico and Virginia = Round Flat Character Analysis =
 * Chris McCandless – main character, adopts the name Alex Supertramp, donated all of his money to charity and headed west when he graduated college, dies of starvation in the Alaskan wilderness
 * Wayne Westerberg – a friend Chris met in South Dakota, provided the information to identify him when he was found dead
 * Walt McCandless – Chris’ father, had a child with his first wife (Chris’ half brother) that Chris didn’t know about
 * Billie McCandless – Chris’ mom
 * Carine McCandless – Chris’ sister, very close with Chris
 * Ronald Frantz – friend of Chris, feels a connection to him from losing his wife and son years earlier, gave him food and rides
 * *Gene Rosellini – tries to “be independent of modern technology” by living off the land (like Chris), declares it a failure after 30 years and commits suicide
 * *John Waterman – very skilled climber that grew up in the same area as Chris, began to break down mentally and climbed Mt. Denali with little gear, killing him
 * *Carl McCunn – gets airdropped by a lake to take photographs during the summer but forgot to arrange a pickup at the end of the summer and dies in the wilderness
 * *Everett Ruess – another adventurer compared to Chris, adopted a new name (Nemo), his death was a mystery
 * Gaylord Stuckley – gave Chris a ride through Alaska and bought him food (bag of rice)

*serves as a comparison to Chris

= Conflicts = person vs self- John ventures into the wild when he becomes fed up with everyone else and drops everything and sets out on his own vision quest. person vs family- chris becomes very upset with his father before he starts his journey because he discovers that his father has had a second family for almost all of chris's life.

= Themes = = Quotes = >> >>
 * the allure of the wild- throughout his journey McCandless has to battle mother nature and her wrath of Fury!!!!!
 * forgiveness- Chris McCandless is shown to be a very compassionate person, who is unwilling to ignore the fact that so many people are starving or hungry around him, and feels a personal responsibility to help them. Yet his actions are selfish, by doing great harm to those who love him most. His inability to forgive his parents’ mistakes seems to be at the center of this seeming contradiction between his compassionate nature and his sometimes cruel behavior.
 * father-son relationship- the combination of trying to please a difficult-to-please father, resenting authority, and discovering his father’s own great failings leads to an almost insurmountable challenge. Although McCandless died before he had the opportunity to grow out of his anger.
 * the allure of danger- throughout the book danger is posed everywhere because McCandless has to survive in the wild on his own and he ultimately doesn't make it
 * "McCandless was thrilled to be on his way north, and he was relieved as well—relieved that he had again evaded the impending threat of human intimacy, of friendship, and all the messy emotional baggage that comes with it. He had fled the claustrophobic confines of his family. He’d successfully kept Jan Burres and Wayne Westerberg at arm’s length, flitting out of their lives before anything was expected of him. And now he’d slipped painlessly out of Ron Franz’s life as well. (Krakauer 55).
 * This quote brings about McCandless’s deep problems with his family, which are very central in his ultimately fatal two-year quest for meaning and peace. During these two years, McCandless doesn’t contact his sister, with whom he was very close, and while he meets many people and becomes close to a few, he always makes sure to maintain a certain distance.
 * “Please return all mail I receive to the sender. It might be a very long time before I return South. If this adventure proves fatal and you don’t ever hear from me again, I want you to know you’re a great man. I now walk into the wild. (Krakauer 69).
 * This quote consists of McCandless’s own words, written on his last postcard to Wayne Westerberg before he goes into the Alaskan wilderness. McCandless acknowledeges the fact that this trip could end fatally and is a very dangerous adventure.
 * “A trancelike state settles over your efforts; the climb becomes a clear-eyed dream. Hours slide by like minutes. The accumulated clutter of day-to-day existence—the lapses of conscience, the unpaid bills, the bungled opportunities, the dust under the couch, the inescapable prison of your genes—all of it is temporarily forgotten, crowded from your thoughts by an overpowering clarity of purpose and by the seriousness of the task at hand, ( Krakauer) 142-143
 * During McCandless’s treks he seems to be trying to escape from the responsibilities and relationships he has; by going into the wild, alone, with no way to contact the outside world, and by having to focus his full attention on keeping himself alive.

= Inference and Analysis = Into the Wild is about rejecting society and reinventing yourself in a new world. Chris McCandless gives himself a new name and a new identity as he ventures into the Alaskan wilderness, thinking he is some kind of hero. Unfortunately, his journey ends tragically as most great hero’s do. = Discussion Questions = -Why do you think Chris dropped everything, left everyone behind and set off on this journey that ultimately led to his death? -Do you agree with Chris's actions? If not, what would you suggest to have done instead?

= Movie Trailer = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmLz1Ij9fOEmedia type="youtube" key="SmLz1Ij9fOE" width="425" height="350"

pictures: http://good-wallpapers.com/wallpapers/20482/Into%20the%20Wild.jpg http://www.thequietman.org/imagenes/Into%20the%20wild%20costa.jpg http://www.siue.edu/~ejoy/into-the-wild-into-the-wild-09-01-2008-21-09-2007-3-g.jpg