Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Neva McConnaughey
ENGL 498
Hansen
Nature is lost. To regain it, we must turn away from civilization and return to a simpler
way of life. So say many ecocritics and writers that believe in a kind of wilderness that embodies
a large stretch of land neither inhabited nor tamed by mankind. These writers band together to
explain the mysterious draw that these last remaining stretches of country untouched, untainted,
and unloved have for people who are looking for something more.
Jon Krakauers Into the Wild tells of one such case of a man looking for something
beyond himself, out in the wilderness. Guided by passion and intuition as a young man of 24,
Christopher McCandless escaped to the Alaskan wilderness to live off the land and become
something better. This essay is an investigation of nature writers and Into the Wild, where
McCandless is part of a tradition throughout literature that explores a complete return to nature
recognized that he lacked the necessary modesty to survive the harsh elements of an Alaskan
summer, but it is also understood that his intentions were heartfelt and innate. McCandless gave
away his inheritance, ditched his car, and went out for a stint of hitchhiking that culminated in a
trek to the Alaskan tundra for which he was ill-prepared and intended only to make it through the
summer. He became a writer, logging his experiences in a journal and carving his name into
environmentalist history.
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Even with his journal, McCandless story isnt told without the help of Krakauer in Into
the Wild. McCandless may have aspired to achieve great feats of survival and journalism, to live
up to the precedents of his role models, but his death came before he could get his written work
out into the world. Krakauer breathes life into his words and his story, pushing McCandless
claiming Krakauer had selfish designs in the book or by asserting that no, if it wasnt for the
novel, we wouldnt actually care about the life or death of this young American. Seldom middle
ground exists about Into the Wild, where readers are either turned against it due to lack of
tendencies towards freedom and independence, which are especially prominent in youth. On the
whole, Into the Wild is widely regarded as being representative of some phenomenon that most
young individuals experience, which is dismissed fairly easily as something those people grow
out of. The story of McCandless is acknowledged for being the quintessence of adolescent
wanderlust, but the dialogue about furthering McCandless travels into a literary tradition as an
The sentiments of early western writers were the fuel for McCandless actions, which
suggests that McCandless was neither crazy nor unique in his ambitions to live in the wild and
return to a simpler way of life. This essay refers to wilderness, which is understood to be a
large bit of land set apart from civilization or human interaction. Wilderness is a representation
of that way of living, and a reflection of our actual smallness in the world. Writers like Thoreau
and Tolstoy knew the value of the natural environment and wrote with such a passion that we
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should all be inspired to go out and put a fence around our trees to preserve them forever. These
early nature writers spoke against materialism, proposing that the notion that we could live such
a life and truly find our place in nature is inherent to all men, but not all men listen to that call.
Armed with very little supplies and calling himself an extremist, McCandless sought to
set himself apart from civilization for good. As soon as he made it to his final location in the
Alaskan tundra, he carved up a manifesto for himself on a small slat of plywood, which
cemented his mission to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual
revolution (Krakauer 163). This manifesto came after he had already spent time living off the
land in a desert, indicating that he considered this trip to be the final step towards achieving his
independence of civilization and materialism. Though many have tried to understand Christopher
McCandless on a personal level, only some have been able to put themselves into his shoes and
understand it. There is a mysterious and inexplicable voice calling all of us to wilderness, to a
McCandless attempted to journal his experience despite limited resources and limited
energy, even scraping out that mission statement on a piece of wood. In this way he became a
nature writer. He adopted a pseudonym for himself, becoming in his travels Alex Supertramp,
instead of Christopher McCandless. This was his chosen identity. McCandless was the young
His quest was intrinsic and native to his ambitions, but can his legacy be upheld with that
of Thoreau and the Greats? His experiences out in the Alaskan nothing-ness fueled his passion
for his pursuit and, had he survived, would have informed his later experiences and writings. He
McCandless writings were few, and not always extensive or profound, but he did say exactly
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what he wanted. His journal from his time living on the bus in Alaska, towards the end of
the
summer, is primarily shorthand because of his lack of nutrition. His writings to others in the form
of postcards and letters are his real legacy, with their prophetic, sincere messages of carpe diem
Some believe his writing to be merely the product of an adolescent working himself
through a phase, claiming that he disrespected nature in a way that would have appalled
Thoreau. (Gifford 79) Prompted by the writings of Henry David Thoreau and Leo Tolstoy,
among others, this young college graduate became a fount of philosophy to everyone he met.
While hitchhiking cross-country, he met so many to whom he would preach of the value of
depravity, of picking up and just setting off on an adventure. One older man actually took his
advice and went to live in the desert for a while. It is the goal of writers - especially of nature
writers - to prompt action. The actions might be a little different now, but there should be no less
may still recognize him as a nature writer based on his writings and his sapient influence on the
people he met, and glean importance from his experience. This is a tale of caution, yes. We must
prepare ourselves both physically and mentally if we are going to tackle the great outdoors and
ride bareback into the sunset. However there is a more passionate message for us as well, which
tells us that we choose our own life and there is only one way for each of us to find bliss.
There is much debate about how to see McCandless choices and whether or not they
were harebrained and unwise. Was he a fool? If this wasnt a sincerely inspired mission, then just
what was he doing out there in the vicious Alaskan tundra? Can we spurn the story of
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Christopher McCandless based on judgements that he was just some kid who was afraid to face
his future or the realities of the world? Those prone to dislike him suggest he got exactly what
he deserved, says one writer about this dispute. (Hodes 103) Another dismisses his actions as
youthful hubris, counting him among the many who have attempted exactly what he did, and
either narrowly escaped with their lives or left with the understanding that they were stupid to
ever think they could do it (Nightingale 61). McCandless story is glamorized and occasionally
exaggerated by Krakauers alluring writing. His romantic depictions of Chriss travel make
The difficulty is in reconciling our feelings of respect for the integrity of McCandless
journey with the inordinate desire to call him an idiot. If all he inspired others to do was donate
their cars and backpack to the nearest national park, rather than actually invoking a respect and
admiration for the environment, does that go against the original pursuit of the nature writer? We
cant know for certain, we may only debate. Ivan Hodes asks, in a response piece to Into the
Wild, why does this one particular death continue to excite strong emotion in so many
people?(Hodes 102). The answer follows that Christopher McCandless is a symbol to many
people, and between us all he represents very diverse, often conflicting things.
Writings about nature claim that there is an obvious disagreement between ideas of
wilderness and civilization, and that nature is where the writer can engage with the world in its
purest form. This interaction brings truth, and greater understanding of the world. To understand
Chris McCandless motivations in Into the Wild, we must examine the originators of this concept.
Timothy Sweet writes about Henry David Thoreaus influence in this genre, pioneering a
movement by having effectively invented the personal nature essay; a genre both introspective
and objectively grounded in close observation of natural world, devoted at once to seeking self-
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awareness and to extending human empathy to nonhuman life.(Sweet 404) Thoreau laid the
groundwork for environmentalism and triggered legitimate questions about the relationship
between man and nature. Writers of this genre experienced the wilderness as a mighty energy. An
entity. Like a person we began to take for granted, they pressed that we needed to begin
The writer of nature understands more when stripped of familiarity and comfort, in the
naked, solely individual exploration and contemplation of the natural world(Mossman 79). It is
all about discovery and truth and significance. On the road to discovery, we can sometimes find
very conflicting ideas. In a collection of nature poetry for the Kenyon Review, David Baker
writes in his introduction I tend to agree with one friend who argues that nature essentially no
longer exists. He means the nature of wilderness and wildness, that place where people have
never gone, a site untouched, natural(Baker 5). He follows this, however, by saying I also
agree with another friend who argues, conversely, that everything is nature(Baker 6).
individualistic. There are no teams to side with; it isnt about man vs. nature because man uses
nature to become something else, to learn about himself. Not only will each person experience it
differently, they will document it differently, too. We see a great example of this in Krakauers
novel, where Bakers clashing opinions appears to be felt by McCandless as well, about whether
true wilderness existed and whether it was something we have lost and could regain.
McCandless resolve to live off the land and rebuff jobs, his familys money, and his upbringing
demonstrates his willingness to experiment with this idea and become the founder of lost
wilderness. This quest was so deeply rooted within him that he didnt struggle to give up
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everything, and turn away from the people who already loved him, and the people who grew to
Although many share this conception that we need to return to a way of life that values,
admires, and upholds nature, this can be a very incompatible notion. Nature is, essentially
lost. However, nature is also everywhere. There are no sides to take, no us versus
them,(Baker 6). This is about man vs. truth. Seeking nature is akin to seeking truth and some
In The Trouble with Wilderness, William Cronon writes of wilderness as a sanctuary: the
one place we can turn for escape from our own too-muchness. Referring again to the founding
writers of nature, Cronon speaks to the prominence of nature having meaning in our lives
throughout literature from beginning of time. The difficulty and extremity is what makes
communion with nature into an otherworldly experience. This was no casual stroll in the
mountains, no simple sojourn in the gentle lap of nonhuman naturethey inspired more awe and
dismay than joy or pleasure. No mere mortal was meant to linger long in such a place. (Cronon
74) In the case of McCandless, he ventured into a land where many have perished and truly no
ordinary individual can survive. So inspired by other writers, and by his youthful passion,
McCandless seemed to feel the same sense of invincibility that so many men of a certain age
feel. He called himself Supertramp - tramp, for the way he wandered and hitchhiked without
planting roots or tying ties. Super, for Superman, because no mere mortal can manage the
After recognizing the deeply personal, equivocally divine role of the wilderness Cronon
states, however, that we create an idea that the wilderness is our real home as a means of evading
our domestic responsibilities. I hope it is clear that my criticism in this essay is not directed at
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wild nature per se, or even at efforts to set aside large tracts of wild land, but rather at the
specific habits of thinking that flow from this complex cultural construction called wilderness.
(Cronon 80) This might also affect our opinion of McCandless, knowing that he was a recent
college graduate with no plans except to take a long, much needed trip. That detail alone shapes
many peoples understanding of Christopher McCandless, turning him into a young man that
shied away from the responsibilities of adulthood by taking to the road and refusing to settle
down in one place - a disposition that he might have outgrown if he had lived through his
summer in Alaska. Constantly running, his education and strong opinions led him to many side
jobs and friendships, all of which invited him to stay and all of these he turned down. This was a
way of life that McCandless admired, and one that he propagated everywhere he visited. The
rhetoric of nature writing, according to Mark Mossman, recommended a different way of living
for us all. The entire genre of nature writing in fact acts as a kind of constant subversive
activity, a suggestion that we, as a civilization, as a culture, are living a wrong way of
life(Mossman 80). McCandless refused to work with his mind but worked with his hands along
his travels, turning his mind to his passions instead, where he kept a journal that echoed the
songs of the nature writers in endorsing his way of living as the best and truest way an individual
can live.
Writing is an intensely personal experience that helps individuals make sense of the
world around them. In regard to nature, particularly when dealing with a version of nature that
throws death in our faces and brings us to our knees in either desperation, awe, or both, the
distinction between nature writing and any other form is that the writing is as individual as the
experience is religious. What a person feels in the utter almightiness of the wilderness is going to
be reflected through their writing, and such is the case for McCandless. In his article, Mossman
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makes an appropriate nod to this manifestation: Nature writing is a genre concerned with the
egos or the self, and the world that surrounds that self; it is, in fact, concerned most with that
selfs interaction with that world, with nature...the self will discover something, must discover
something, and must deliver that message, that discovery to the reader of the work, to the
audience.(Mossman 79)
Nature is where the world divulges its secrets. To understand it you have to interact with
it, not tear it apart. Nature writers understand this, and seek to inspire similar notions in
others; part of this hope is to inspire activism towards preservation of the wild for future
generations. An old Native American proverb said, we do not inherit the earth from our
ancestors, we borrow it from our children. This very foundation of the movement to find nature
and commune with the creator in the heart of his creation rests in the idea that our world has to
experience, the emotional, psychological rationale for someone to drop everything and go exist
permanently with nature comes with an idea of ecological sublime. The Sublime is a concept
about being terrified of something that could kill you, that you dont fully understand, which
manifests into a respect for that thing. In nature, our terror at something larger and more
powerful than we are becomes significant in the way that it shows us our place in the universe.
We are not top dog. Robert Tindol writes about Emersons nature essay, claiming that he was
attempting to come to terms with human fragility in a unique way. Understanding this mindset
is important if we are to comprehend a persons need for adventure. Nature is spiritual; that is
why so many men and women have been struck with this bizarre and sensational urge to deep-six
their possessions and routines to move into the country for a more simplistic existence.
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recognized as an inevitable emotion to the nature writer. This is the Sublime. Nature dictates
humility among its occupants, and it is only by traversing the wilderness that we meet these
demands and subject ourselves to our niche. In his essay Toward an Ecological Sublime,
Christopher Hitt writes, the sublime experience begins with the apprehension of a natural object
which the imagination is unable to grasp.(Hitt 4) Perhaps this same humility and respect was
what McCandless lacked, and what led, ultimately, to his demise. His pursuit of a sublime
experience was outmatched by his ego, and mans ego cannot survive the barefaced wilderness.
Extreme adventurers, born out of the songs of environmentalists, tackle the sublime with
the same burning desire, hoping to tame it. What makes the experience of a nature expedition
different than any other quest for domination is that all men recognize the fatality of the attempt.
Everyone who gives up civilization for the wilderness comprehends the risk of death, and
welcomes it. Surviving the dangerous wild doesnt come with a crown or scepter, either. If you
make it out alive, you are not a hero - you are lucky. There is a strange acceptance happening in
nature where men seek to find their place in the world, knowing that if they die they will have
found it, and if they survive they will be a different person because of it. In the scope of the
sublime, our understanding of wilderness becomes redefined. Put simply, wilderness is the
place of revelation for the nature writer(Mossman 79). Unlike other challenges in the world, we
do not seek out nature with an ambition to change it or tame it, because we realize our own
incapability.
For the most passionate adventurers, like Krakauer and McCandless, the pursuit of nature
becomes a quest for truth, to face the unknown and find their place in the magnitude of the
world. Tindol explains this feeling as the moments when we realise that our bodies are finite
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and that natural processes go on whether we like it or not - and more importantly, continue
whether we understand them or not.(Tindol 410) Even by finding death, McCandless found his
truth. For some, truth is religious. For others, nature is their religion. Whatever form of truth
McCandless sought, his questions were answered by his death. He discovered who he was,
which was not a wilderness survivor; in his final journal entries, he signed them not as Alex
Supertramp, but as Christopher McCandless. Facing his demise, permanently and without hope
for a miracle, brought him the humility he didnt have to begin with.
As with McCandless, we see such prominent patterns of thought towards adventure and
the jettison of materialism to just become one with nature that it is difficult to count this idea as
anything but intrinsic. People who test themselves in nature are compelled to do so, says Stacy
Taniguchi in The Wilderness Adventure Offers a Path to Self-Actualization where he writes about
our mission in life, as people, to chase blissful pursuits and inspire one another. Reiterating the
ideas of Immanuel Kant and others, Taniguchi describes the experience of indescribable
sensation; the moment when you feel such rapture and magnificence from the top of a hill or a
mountain that you cannot properly express it to anyone. You have to be there to feel it. This is
what Tindoll and Hitt related to, though they dont convey it quite the way Taniguchi can. Being
a wilderness adventurer himself, Taniguchi describes the moment of the sublime as: the
realization that pursuing the thrill of life can dovetail with the risk of death, especially in the
primitive world. It is no wonder, then, that people should want to seek out this moment to
experience it for themselves, but it seems that only the survivors harbor the sincere reverence
The take away from Taniguchis writing is that what happens when someone retreats to
the wilderness is that they return to some deep seeded part of themselves that needs to be free
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from convention to fully experience life. I see people disclose their pure self in the wilderness,
where theyre shorn of facades that hide and impede(Taniguchi 111). What we see with
McCandless, then, is his self-actualization, where he tries to become the purest form of himself.
In changing his name on paper to Alex Supertramp, his bizarre alter-ego, McCandless likely felt
Other writers agree with Taniguchi in reference to Into the Wild. Noting the similarities
between Krakauers interests and those of McCandless, one writer says: Each tapped primal
human instincts, the feeling that there must be more to this life than we experience, the belief
that underneath the material is a spiritual reality.(Staub 75) McCandless wrote about the same
No matter what we believe the virtue of McCandless fateful endeavor, we can certainly
agree that his motives were spurred by the same passions that drove Thoreau and Emerson, and
others, to drop anchor where they felt closest to nature and try to share that experience with
others. It is natural for a person to want to find themselves, or their truth. It is natural for us to
The final journal entry of Christopher McCandless, sometime during the week he died,
said only beautiful blueberries. It might be his death that brings reverence to the words, or the
knowledge that he didnt have the strength to write much more than that. Language is not so
much a theory of linguistics, says Tindoll, as it is a means of showing how words on paper or
otherwise can establish a relationship with nature(Tindol 414). True to his genre, the last entry
in his book would say nothing of regret and personal sorrow but rather something about the
Works Cited
Baker, David. "Nature's Nature: A Gathering Of Poetry." Kenyon Review 37.3 (2015): 5-
Gifford, Bill. McCandless Should Not Be Compared to Thoreau, Tolstoy, and Beat
Writers. Wilderness Adventure in Jon Krakauers Into the Wild. Ed. Noel Merino.
Harrison, Robert Pogue. "`Not ideas about the thing but the thing itself'." New Literary
History 30.3 (1999): 661. Academic Search Premier. Web. 24 Sept. 2015.
Hitt, Christopher. "Toward An Ecological Sublime." New Literary History 30.3 (1999):
Hodes, Ivan. There Is Much Misunderstanding About McCandless and Into the Wild.
Wilderness Adventure in Jon Krakauers Into the Wild. Ed. Noel Merino. Farmington
Nightingale, Suzan. McCandless Was Neither Lucky nor Stupid, but Foolish.
Wilderness Adventure in Jon Krakauers Into the Wild. Ed. Noel Merino. Farmington
Literature 45.2 (2010): 403-416. Academic Search Premier. Web. 23 Sept. 2015.
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Sublime." Changing English: Studies In Culture & Education 20.4 (2013): 409-419.
Wilderness Adventure in Jon Krakauers Into the Wild. Ed. Noel Merino. Farmington