In the culture we live in today, we are bombarded with ideas and images of “what we should be”. We are expected and obligated to modify ourselves in order to live up to social expectations and to feel accepted by others. It is the fear of being an outcast that pressures us to mask our true identity. Therefore, in an American culture, one can form an identity and still remain true and authentic to oneself through nonconformity and self-reliance. Jon Krakauer’s novel Into the Wild portrays Chris McCandless’s journey of discovering his true identity through the idea of nonconformity. McCandless takes on the world and sees it in a different perspective, then most others. The author writes, "No longer would he answer to Chris McCandless, he was now Alexander Supertramp, master of his own …show more content…
As Ralph Emerson said, “Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles” (last sentence of book). Remaining true to himself, McCandless was able to achieve what he considered to be meaningful in life. From the start of his journey, it is seen that being true to oneself is challenging, as others are living in a world that demands them to alter their identity. However, one must stay true and authentic and understand the desires and needs, in order to attain an adequate living, just like Chris McCandless. In today’s society, self-reliance and non-conformity is an annotation on the tenets that people still value. Some people in today’s world have seemed to forgotten the ability to be content in isolation and individuality. Being true to oneself takes bravery and it compels one to be pensive and unbiased. Like Chris McCandless, he was pensive and unbiased without being thoughtless or impertinent to others. Chris McCandless was also self-reliant and did not conform, which led him to define himself of who he truly
To symbolize the complete severance from his previous life, he even adopted a new name. No longer would he answer to Chris McCandless; he was now Alexander Super-tramp, master of his own destiny.” (Krakauer 22) Journal Entry: (R) This passage illustrates a man who wants to change and start a new life by becoming a new person. This is very important as we learn that Chris McCandles is a dynamic character, and he wants to change from the type of person he was at the beginning of the book. Even when Chris McCandless had “adopted a new name”, it had symbolized that he was transforming into a new person that was now known as “Alexander Super-tramp, master of his own destiny”.
In into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer, the concentration of the book, Christopher McCandless, shows confidence practically to the point of monomania and self-assimilation. It was not until he took off on his Alaskan Odyssey be that as it may, that those nearest to him understood the force of that freedom. Through cautious research and an individual association with McCandless, Jon Krakauer gives the peruser an inside take a gander at a young fellow who did not give many individuals a chance to close. To affirm his autonomy and turn out to be totally confident, McCandless took uncommon measures to reveal Reality. Many parallels can be drawn between Chris' beliefs and Emerson's paper, Confidence, in which he shows that individuals must look for isolation
Into The Wild is written in both the 1st person, when the author is giving his own opinion or giving credibility, and in the 3rd person, when the author or anyone being quoted is talking about Chris McCandless. The effect Krakauer achieves is the notion of how isolated individuals exist in a state of wilderness and establishing his credibility. Krakauer personally connects with McCandless and explores every aspect of his life to discover the real truth of his death, and is convinced he did not die from starvation. He becomes emotionally attached to Chris and even develops a strong relationship with his parents. As a result, this effect leads to his writing being slightly biased.
Chris left society behind to escape societal normality and to search for a new identity. He wasn’t scared of the wild or the people that he would encounter, Insisting on making friends or peace with them instead. He had adventures and journeys that should be seen as inspirational and interpreted to fit the beliefs of many. I believe that Chris “Alexander Supertramp” McCandless should be viewed as a
Sometimes he tried too hard to make sense of the world.” (pg 18) McCandless spent too much time thinking of the world's flaws, it pained him, in turn he chose to live a type of transcendental life. The life that ultimately bid him death, a big part of it at least. The second part that ruined him to this life was his tendency to act out of anger.
Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild investigates the life and adventures of Chris McCandless. The author provides information about Chris’ life to illuminate his journey. Krakauer also uses rhetorical appeals to defend Chris’ rationale for his journey. Through Krakauer’s use of pathos, ethos, and logos, he persuades the audience that Chris is not foolish; however, Krakauer’s intimacy with Chris and his adventures inhibits his objectivity.
Everyone sets their goals at different expectations than others which is why you typically don’t go for the same goal as other people. The adventure that McCandless went on was dangerous, but it fit his expectation to be independent and to find where he belongs. McCandless valued self-reliance ,he needed to be his own person, with his own vision and way of thinking so that others wouldnt influence him along the way. He recognized that the only way for him to find his own truth would to be self-centered and focus on his own being first, without others clouding his sense of
He had the courage to give up every bit of money he had by getting “A pathetic little stack of ones and fives and twenties- and put a match on it”( Krakauer 29). No normal person would undergo this process but McCandless did which shows the courage he has in trusting the wilderness. Not only did he give up his possessions but he did infact have the courage to take on a new name he had given himself. “No longer would he answer to Chris McCandless; he was now Alexander Supertramp, master of his own destiny”( Krakauer 23).
Identity speaks of who we are as individuals but it also comes from two different groups: social and cultural. These groups are connected to power, values and ideology. Social identities are related to how we interact with people and how we present ourselves. Meanwhile cultural identities relate to society in whole such as religion, values, etc. In this paper I will talk about the dominant and subordinate identities.
McCandles Parallel Essay Every person in this world has dreams and reasons to live. They live with a goal that they want to achieve sometime in their lives. It may be as simple as wanting to rest at the end of the day or beating the world’s record and becoming popular. There are a few people that are similar to Chris McCandles and Everett Ruess that is willing to give up everything they have in exchange for their dream. McCandles and Ruess both represent freedom, adventure and romanticism for they lived their lives pursuing their dreams with a strong mindset that encouraged them to be one with the nature and away from everyone else.
For this, McCandless should be admired for his views for allowing him to live his best life. In conclusion, McCandless is not a reckless individual who perishes due to arrogance. Instead, he is admirable because his ideals have allowed him to live with true happiness. He waits long years and even breaks his values temporarily in order to achieve his goals.
The environment in which an individual grows up in can affect life greatly. Our surroundings influence one’s personality, self-expression, and individuality, otherwise known as identity. Finding one’s true self is the most grueling stage of life and expectations of family and society make the process even harder. One’s true identity can sometimes clash with hopes of others, thus breaking tradition and/or family ties. Pressure to change will always be present, but staying true to uniqueness will prevail.
If someone has not suffered a similar inner turmoil, it would be easy for them to misunderstand his actions and assume that he was just an uneducated, crazy man. Chris McCandless despised the phoniness of the world around him and wanted to escape it by engaging in a, “climactic battle to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual revolution” (pg. 112). These thoughts are similar to those experienced by people who struggle with depression. Chris McCandless felt that he was living in a world full of superficial beings whose only concern was what other people thought of them. His solution was to journey into the wild where he would, “no longer answer to Chris McCandless he was now Alexander Supertramp, master of his own destiny” (pg. 18).
How others see you is influenced by material, social, and physical constraints. This causes a tension between how much control you have in constructing your own identity and how much control or constraint is exercised over you. How we see ourselves and how others see us differ in many ways, but is an important factor of our identity. “A Lesson Before Dying”,
McCandless values education and is an intelligent man who graduates Emory University with a degree in a grueling major (Krakauer 20). He never contributes much effort into school since the work was easy for him, unlike his colleagues. This makes him extremely confident in all his abilities and is never faced with any problems. The absence of conflict affects him and provides a belief that to find his individuality and identity, he should find something to test his life skills. McCandless is also able to gain traits of being stubborn.