Who Is Krakauer's Bias In Into The Wild
Bias of Jon Krakauer The book Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer is about a young man named Chris “Alex Supertramp” McCandless, who goes into the Alaskan wilderness, some say unprepared, and dies. In this story Krakauer includes opinions of others like how they did not exactly think highly of Chris or how they thought he was brave, but he also has his own bias on Chris McCandless. Like every other opinion, there is a reason behind why Krakauer felt the way he did toward Chris. His reason is because he feels he can relate to Chris. Seeing as how they have been through several similar experiences, Krakauer has in a sense a “weak spot” for him. He didn't believe Chris was ignorant, but was just trying to find his own person. He admired his determination
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“I was haunted by the particulars of the boys starvation and by vague, unsettling parallels between events in his life and those in my own.” (Krakauer). This quote helped make it obvious that this was Krakauer’s reason as to why he thought so fondly of Chris. His bias was on a personal level. Chris and his father did not have a great relationship mainly because he found out about a lie his father had been keeping. Krakauer too realized that his father, a man that seemed to think himself to be perfect, also had flaws. So when analyzing Chris’s life, Krakauer was able to relate to Chris because of the fact they were both driven away by the imperfection of their fathers. Krakauer states, “But I believe we were similarly affected by the skewed relationships we had with our fathers” (Krakauer 155), relating himself to McCandless’s situation and because of this he goes on to say, “And I suspect we had a similar intensity, a similar heedlessness, a similar agitation of the soul”(Krakauer 155), furthermore comparing himself to Chris. He even adds his own experience of his “call of the wild”, it seems, to give the reader insight on Alex McCandless’s ways and this insight could have played a role in misdirecting a readers opinion of
“I was haunted by the particulars of the boys starvation and by vague, unsettling parallels between events in his life and those in my own.” (Krakauer). This quote helped make it obvious that this was Krakauer’s reason as to why he thought so fondly of Chris. His bias was on a personal level. Chris and his father did not have a great relationship mainly because he found out about a lie his father had been keeping. Krakauer too realized that his father, a man that seemed to think himself to be perfect, also had flaws. So when analyzing Chris’s life, Krakauer was able to relate to Chris because of the fact they were both driven away by the imperfection of their fathers. Krakauer states, “But I believe we were similarly affected by the skewed relationships we had with our fathers” (Krakauer 155), relating himself to McCandless’s situation and because of this he goes on to say, “And I suspect we had a similar intensity, a similar heedlessness, a similar agitation of the soul”(Krakauer 155), furthermore comparing himself to Chris. He even adds his own experience of his “call of the wild”, it seems, to give the reader insight on Alex McCandless’s ways and this insight could have played a role in misdirecting a readers opinion of