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Into the Wild: by Jon Krakauer

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Into the Wild: by Jon Krakauer
In my opinion I believe the authors main point in this essay was to vindicate anything that Chris McCandless did in his life. When reading I could definitely sense Krakauers natural liking for McCandless. He was sympathetic to McCandless, based on Krakauers sense of a shared experience in their youth and up until McCandless eventual death and Krakauers perceived near death experience on the Devils Thumb.
I believe the author’s main point and perspective was formed from his own experience and relationship with his father. While the situations were basically reversed with Chris not approving of his father and Lewis Krakauer disappointed in Jon for not following is “blueprint” there are similar parallels. Both McCandless and Krakauer‘s fathers where high achievers in life and McCandless and Krakauer both shared a similar perspective in their youth. I can envision Krakauer writing this book as a form of therapy for him. Enabling him to tell his story along with McCandless’s working out the issues he had with his father along the way.
From the Authors point of view McCandless could do no wrong. Krakauer felt what I believe to be a deep connection with McCandless. He portrayed the similarities to his youth similar to McCandles. (Krakauer, 1996) . Much like McCandless, Krakauer became alienated with his father and his beliefs. He thought his father was part of the artificial consumer mentality and did not seek what was "real" in life. Like Chris 's father, Jon discovers that his father had lived a double life and was “merely human”. Chris 's father had a different family altogether. I 'm not clear on what exactly Jon 's father did but Jon felt him to be a hypocrite in the highest order.
Krakauer did a wonderful job in documenting McCandless’s journey and retracing his steps. Supporting the books theme by interviewing his family and the people McCandless met along the way. He wrote the story in a way that made me feel empathic to Chris McCandless. One



Cited: Into_the_Wild_(book). (n.d.). Retrieved January 27, 2012, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_the_Wild_%28book%29 (1996). In J. Krakauer, Into The Wild.

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