Theme and Author Perspective of the Book Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
The novel, Into The Wild, by Jon Krakauer has many themes or lessons regarding the sad story of a young man named Chris McCandless who died an early and unfortunate death, while following his ambitions. Among the many themes found in this book, some include a father-son relationship, free thought, materialism, and young manhood. Krakauer describes Chris as a person who was very independent and capable of doing many things. He was someone who didn’t bend to any rules other than his own, including those given by his parents. Chris’s character embodies the theme free thought such as, “He intended to invent an utterly new life for himself, one in which he would be free to wallow unfiltered . . . No longer would he answer to Chris McCandless; he was now Alex Supertramp, master of his own destiny,” (Krakauer, 23). One of McCandless’s goals was to detach himself from his previous life and society so he could move on to a life more exciting and to his own tastes. He didn’t care what others thought of him during his journey, specifically when he would go days without taking a bath. Because McCandless was a free thinker, he would often disagree with his parents, namely his father. Krakauer also had an uneasy relationship with his father. Both McCandless and Krakauer were highly ambitious people with their own morals and goals, fueled by their strong wills and passions. However, problems surfaced because their fathers’ ambitions for them were very different from their own and great rifts were caused between father and son. McCandless’s relationship with his father partly influenced McCandless to leave his home and college without a trace. The book states, “Both father and son were stubborn and high-strung. Given Walt’s need to exert control and Chris’s extravagantly independent nature, polarization was inevitable . . . He brooded at length over what he perceived to be his father’s moral shortcomings, the hypocrisy of his parents’ lifestyle, the tyranny of their conditional
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