Into The Wild, Final Reflection

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Into The Wild. From the beginning, Krakauer presented Chris McCandless as a reckless youth seduced by the philosophies of Jack London and Henry David Thoreau whose death could have been prevented;but the beauty of McCandless's story was that it was deeper than it appeared. McCandless not unlike many other adventure seekers who wandered into the unforgiving Alaskan wilderness, but according to Krakauer, McCandless had a heightened sense of what it meant to connect with nature, it was more than just an escape for him, it was a way of life. Krakauer identified with McCandless's upper-middle class upbringing and strained relationship with his father. Krakauer recognized the depth of McCandless's reasoning, depth that was lacking in the actions of the other adventurers lost to the wild. McCandless shared that reckless spirit that has led all the great mountaineers to the top of Everest and subsequently into solitude, but McCandless had a way of connecting with people that most other explorers lacked. Usually the journals of explorers are used as a portal into their thoughts , used to understand the emotional journey they experienced on their expeditions; they tend to reveal very intimate things about their experiences. McCandless wrote his journals in the third person, and most of them are only philosophical reflections revealing very little about his impressions and emotions. The majority of what is known about McCandless is through the people he met on his journey and his influence on their lives. The fact that it is a human connection that tells the most about this young man is evidence that despite the solitude he sought, he was deeply connected to people as well as nature. I found this to be the most intriguing aspect of McCandless's story. As Krakauer revealed, there are many people who have shunned society to find meaning in nature, but none that have been able to connect so deeply with both humanity and the wild.