Pain and Compassion

"Seven weeks after the body of his son turned up in Alaska wrapped in a blue sleeping bag that Billie had sewn for Chris from a kit, Walt studies a sailboat scudding beneath the window of his waterfront townhouse. 'How is it,' he wonders aloud as he gazes blankly across Chesapeake Bay, 'that a kid with so much compassion could cause his parents so much pain?'" (Krakauer 103).

Topics: The Dynamics of Family

This quote has a lot of irony tied to it. To begin, Chris McCandless said he wanted break all ties with his parents yet I find it interesting he still had and brought his blue sleeping bag that Billie had made for him. I think Chris deep down always wanted to have a good relationship with his family but he could not because he did not want to be part of something so cruel and hurtful for others. The dynamics of his family were far from a traditional happy family although he might have always wished it could be different. The second part of irony I found was that after everything his father has done to his family all Walt was focused on was how his son was so compassionate but somehow made his parents feel terrible. I find it amazing how Chris coming from not the best family environment took life into his own hands and didn't let what was "bound" to happen overtake what he truly wanted, pure happiness.

Taking It To The Limit

"...engaging in risky behavior is a rite of passage in our culture no less than in most others. Danger has always held a certain allure. That, in large part, is why so many teenagers drive too fast and drink too much and take too many drugs, whit has always bee o easy for nations to recruit young men to go to war. It can be argued that youthful derring-do is in fact evolutionary adaptive, a behavior encoded in our genes. McCandless, in his fashion, merely took risk-taking to its logical extreme" (Krakauer 182).

Topic: Inspiration or Fool?

I think we can all agree that Chris McCandless has proven to u that he is daring and willing to doe anything and everything to fulfill true happiness. Many people think he is straight up crazy. Little do people know, Chris was born into a physically abusive family. His father often went off on alcoholic rages beating his mother. From a young age Chris loved to go adventuring as a release of all the negative energy. So it did not come as a surprise to his family when they found out what he spent his last 2 years doing. People uneducated about Chris's past made the assumptions that he just flipped a switch in his mind that made him lose touch with humanity. This teaches a valuable lesson of "don't judge a book by its cover." To me, Chris is an inspiration. Throughout his adventures he proves to me that you can do whatever makes you happy, as you can see in the last photo Chris McCandless took before he climbed into his sleeping bag in the Alaskan wilderness and never woke again.

Avoiding Emotional Baggage

"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" (Krakauer 55).

Topic: The Dynamics of Family

A theme throughout life for many individuals is avoidance, and this seems to be a common pattern for McCandless too. From the very start Chris McCandless was raised in a home that was violent and detached. This upbringing has led to many issues that are shown throughout Into The Wild. First, Chris escaped his family without any warning or notice, leaving everything behind and breaking all ties with his parents. This was the starting point of the excessive avoidance from people he built relationships with. Chris continually shows us how much he has been affected from his hard upbringing  throughout the novel. Starting with Wayne Westerberg, McCandless proves that maintaining a close relationship with someone is hard for him. Though he still maintained contact with most of the people he met while traveling through postcards, Chris avoided human relationships at all costs. McCandless chose to leave everything behind and be in complete seclusion from society with very few belongings. I never knew how something like this could cause a reaction so drastic that would lead them to death.