Who Is Chris Mccandless?

It is mere human nature to want to determine a label for all species and specimens of life. It satisfies a deeply rooted human need for meaning to describe another person, place, or thing in a crisp and decisive manner. This is precisely why Chris McCandless is such a subject of outrage among some, but also inspiration among others. Chris McCandless cannot be defined clearly. One can only go as far as defining what Chris is not, just like Krakauer in the prompt. Anyone can easily describe Chris; a young man of higher education, upper middle class, radical ideals, but no one can ever give a proper definition for this enigma. The enigma is a phenomenon that is native to our very own day and age. It is the result of a growing conflict between …show more content…
On one front was his parents’ lifestyle, the picturesque result of the American dream, the corporate bounty. Chris grew apart from this way of life the more he realized what lay in the shadows of his parents’ lies. The more Chris searched for depth in the life he had seemed to live, the more he saw only shallowness in every aspect. On the other front of this whirlpool conflict were all of Chris’s dreams, the things he had found in his learning that seemed to him to hold the ultimate depth and spiritual clarity for him. In his early life he had decided that this monkish style of life was for him, running avid cross country races as the team captain on a so-called ‘spiritual’ level, and spending his saturday nights giving aid to the homeless and the outcasts of society. This behavior was simply a reaction to all of the things Chris just couldn’t stand, like new cars and superficial brunches, and his behavior and the lifestyle he grew up living in soon became polar opposites. Chris was sure that he had found the depth that he …show more content…
McCandless love to shame him for his petty mistakes, ill-preparedness, and selfishness. Followers of his radical ways are inspired by his audacity and fearlessness. However, all of these aspects of Chris are from a short time in his life, a smaller piece of a bigger picture. People judge Chris on the basis of a crazy trip he took in his twenties, a very common thing for the typical person his age. The reader of Chris’s story should not fail to realize that, by the very end of his journey, Chris was entering a new time in his life, a new way of being and thinking. This is evidenced by some of his own final words; ‘HAPPINESS ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED.’ Chris was about to die, but he had finally realized a peaceful point of moderation and homeostasis between both opposite forces in the whirlpool of his mind. He was ready to become the man he was supposed to be, and who knows what kind of man he could have been? Would he have gone to Harvard Law like his mother Billie had hoped, and saved the poor as an influential lawyer? Would he have written his own account of his