Introduction to Into the Wild

It begins with Chris's body being found in an old abandoned bus. It back tracks through the weeks he was gone and on this journey. He survived for a little more than 100 days just on what was around him. He ate edible plants and berries to stay alive after deciding to go through the Alaskan wilderness. He one day chooses the wrong thing to eat and ends up eating a seed that poisoned him. In healthy people they probably could have fought off the poison chemicals but because he was not fully nourished he could not. He then suffers from weakness and starvation which was hypothesized after they found his body weighing 67 pounds. This then leads to his death alone and in the wilderness. Join me on the journey through this book. It will be an adventure!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_the_wild

Jon Krakauer Biography

Jon Krakauer, the author if Into the wild, was born on April 12, 1954. He was born in Massachusetts an went onto high school and college with achievments. he found his love in 1977. Her name was Linda Mariam Moore and they got married. After college he went on a climb in the wilderness which helped him write Into the Wild. At first he had a part time job as a fisherman and wrote for a magazine the other half of the time. Then on November 1983 he stopped being a part time fisherman and became a full time writer. He went on many dangerous adventures and even climbed Mount Everest. His journeys helped him to write the well known books that are in the world today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Krakauer

A Place I Would Like To Go!

A place in the United States I would like to go to is California. I have never been there before but there are people I know who have. I have heard it is so beautiful. It is warm and sunny all the time. There is great shopping, eating, and plenty of beaches to go to. There are also movie sets and tours around L.A. you can go on. Also, an old friend moved there a few years ago and I could visit and they could show us all the sights. One other reason I would like to go there is to go to all of the different dance conventions. In California they have so many great teachers to take class from that you can't here or many other places. I would love to take class from the choreographers I look up to. It would be a great experience to go to California to see and do all that is there!

Getting to know Chris McCandless through Direct and Indirect Characterization

Direct characterization is when the writer explicitly tells the reader what a character looks and acts like.
Examples:
1. " He didn't appear to be very old; eighteen, maybe nineteen at most." pg.3
2. " He was congenial and seemed well educated." pg. 5
3. " Virtually no subcutaneous fat remained on the body, and the muscles had withered significantly in the days or weeks prior to death. At the time of the autopsy, McCandless's remains weighed sixty-seven pounds. Starvation was posited at the most probable cause of death." pg. 15
4. " Odd young man he knew as Alex." pg.16
5. " Weterberg, a hyper kinetic man with thick shoulders and a black goatee, owns a grain elevator in Carthage..." pg. 16
6. " McCandless was smallish with the hard, stringy physique of an itinerant laborer.: pg.16
7. There was something about the youngsters eyes. Dark and emotive, they suggested a trace of exotic bloodin his heritage- Greek, maybe, or Chippewa- and conveyed a vulnerability that made Westerberg want to take the kid under his wing." pg. 16
8. " He ahd the kind of sensitive good looks that women made a big fuss over." pg.16
9. " He was nearsited and wore steel-rimmed glasses. He looked hungry." pg. 17
10. " you could tell right away that Alex was intelligent." pg. 18

Indirect characterization is when the writer shows the reader what the character does, says, thinks, and/or feels, and then lets the reader draw his/her own conclusions about the character.
Examples:
1. " Alex didn't seem to worried." pg. 6
2. " The word that comes to mind is excited. he couldn't wait to head out there and get started." pg. 6
3. " In may 1990, Chris graduated from Emory University in Atlanta, where he'd been a columnist for, and editor of, the student newspaper, The Emry Wheel, and had distinguished himself as a history and anthropology major with a 3.72 grade-point average." pg. 20
4. " What Walt, Billie, and Carine didn't know when they flew down to Atlanta to attend Chris's commencement- what nobody knew- was that he would shortly donate all the money in his college fund to OXFAM America, a charity dedicated to fighting hunger," pg.20
5. He already had a good car that worked fines and his parent insisted to buy him a new one in a letter written to Carine he said, " I can't believe they tried to buy me a car." pg. 21
6. " I'm going to have to be real careful not to accept any gifts from them in the future because they will think they have bought my respect.: pg. 21
7. " 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 Supertramp, master of his own destiny." pg. 23
8. " Worried that he would be denied entry because he was carrying no identification, he sneaked into Mexico by paddling through the dam's open floodgates and shooting the spillway below." pg. 34
9. " But his entry of Mexico is either unnoticed or ignored. Alexander is Jubilant!" pg. 34
10. " Having reached his destination, McCandless slowed his pace, and his mood became more contemplative." pg. 35

According to the traits McCandless is a young and good looking man. Based off of what people said about him he was intelligent, got along with people very well and works hard at everything he does. He was a great man, full of desire to find his purpose in life.

The Symbols that would be on my Belt

The first thing I would put on my belt would be L.B.D which are the initials of my mother. She is the most important thing in my life. I wouldn't be anywhere without her. The next thing I would put on my belt would be a pair of dance shoes. Dance is the second most important thing to me. I can't imagine my life without it and the people I met because of it. The next thing I would put on it is Radio City Music Hall.I was able to get a scholarship, go up to NYC for a week, and perform in a show there for dance. It is one of the great memories I have. Then I would have the breast cancer symbol put on. My grandmother was diagnosed with it a year or two ago and she means so much to me. I want to represent how great of a fighter she is against this disease. Next would be the Eiffel Tower because I have always wanted to go to Paris and see it. Next I would put a Broadway sign on it because every time I go to NYC I go see a Broadway show and are always amazing. Then I would put in a cruise ship. I went on one last summer for vacation and it was so much fun. I went with my whole family and my best friend. Lastly, I would carve in NYU because that is the place I would really like to go to for college. NYC is one of my favorite places in the world and I would love living there.

My Impression of Christopher McCandless

I think McCandless was not crazy he was just looking for meaning in life. He just wanted to find peace and get away from all the things that consume peoples lives. I don't think he went into the wild on a suicide mission. Even though I feel he had a good reason for doing what he did I think he did it irresponsibly. I think he should have been more prepared. Chris would still have gotten the same feeling he did he just probably could have survived. He shouldn't have gone in with barely any food and he should have studied up on the place he was going and the conditions in the area. It was not smart of him to go into the wild so uninformed and so unprepared.

Into the Wild Persuasive Essay

Christopher McCandless and the Mistakes That Killed Him
By: Megan Rink

Going into something dangerous and unprepared is a good way to get yourself killed. Chris McCandless was a man who followed his dreams and wanted to find his meaning in life which is what I admire about him. But he went into his dream unprepared and unintelligently. Christopher McCandless went into the wild with no idea what was ahead of him, which inevitably was his downfall in life, and I can’t help but think how selfish and stupid he was to go into something like that alone and unprepared.
Even though I don’t feel Chris went in on a suicide mission I do think he went in totally unprepared without any care that his family would be very hurt if anything happened to him. All he had with him was, “…a ten-pound bag of rice. His gear seemed exceedingly minimal for the harsh conditions of the interior… Alex’s cheap leather hiking boots that were neither water proof nor well insulated. His rifle was only .22 caliber… He had no ax, no bug dope, no snowshoes, no compass” (Krakauer 5). He was going into these harsh conditions with nothing that would really help him survive for very long. These little things and his unpreparedness was the death of him, and I can’t help but think how selfish he was to do that to the people who matter most in his life. He must have known to some extent that these minimal things would not let him survive
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out there for very long, and even with his family out in the world somewhere, I don’t think he cared.
Secondly, he didn’t study up on the area he was walking into. The Teklanika River was one of his mistakes he could have avoided if he had studied more. The river is usually easier to cross in the winter, which is when Chris crossed, but in the summer the melting snow makes it almost impossible to cross. When Chris got to the point where he didn’t know how much longer he could stay out there, he decided to go back. When he got back to the river though there was no way he would be able to cross without dying in the process. “… As the glaciers and snowfields at the Teklanika’s headwaters thawed in the summer heat, its discharge would multiply nine or ten times in volume, transforming the river into a deep, violent torrent that bore no resemblance to the gentle brook he’d blithely waded across in April”(163). As you can see he didn’t study up on the conditions of the area that would later come, which in the end contributed to his death.
Lastly, I think another stupid thing he did was not talking to anyone in his family and telling them where he was. If he had called someone in the family who was looking for him they may have found him before he had died. They especially would not have felt so much grief because they would have been on better terms with him and know his situation. If Chris had told more people about his family he may be alive, because they may have cared enough to find them and let them know where Chris was. Like Gaylord Stuckey said, “After he left, I thought, ‘Oh, why didn’t I get his parents’ phone number and call them myself’” (160)?


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Many people think Chris was very brave and smart to do what he did. I do think he was brave and followed his dream, but what he did and how he did it was stupid. Many people oppose the negative by saying how brave and noble it was going out and trying to survive. Billie
says, “Many people have told me they admire Chris for what he was trying to do” (203). I believe Chris did follow his dreams like many people do and I admire him for that. What I don’t admire is that he went into his dream so unprepared and ignorant. Many people may think this is the greatest thing someone could do to find themselves, but I believe it is just stupid to do it the way he did.
Chris may have inspired many people and done what he had always wanted, but he didn’t do it the right way. He was selfish and unprepared. I think you should always follow your dreams no matter what they are, but do it safely and the right way. Don’t be careless and reckless the way Chris was or you may never fulfill your dream.

Work cited
Krakauer, Jon. Into the Wild. 1996