McConnaughey 1

Neva McConnaughey

ENGL 498

Hansen

December 13, 2015

Alexander Supertramp: the Nature Writer

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

as a way of living. This is a blended analysis of Christopher McCandless story, where it is

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

legacy forward in the way it was always intended.

Revolving conversation about the novel is often affronted by Krakauers involvement, by

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

authenticity, or they embrace it for its emblematic presence in society.

Many scholars have examined McCandless pursuit of independence as an example 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

advocate for nature is only just getting started.

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

land untouched, that some people just cant quiet down.

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

man, but Supertramp was the nature writer.

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

documented it in whatever hodge-podge way he could, lacking resources and nutrition.

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

and wilderness worship. Those artifacts function now as his publications.

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

merit to a message of adventure than one of wilderness conservation.

Regardless of whether or not McCandless expedition was worthy of praise or glory we

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

McCandless sound more heroic to some than he might actually be.

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

appreciating something before it was gone altogether.

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).

By accepting both of these perspectives, he creates the discussion that nature is

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

love him on the way.

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

writers see this as a very religious experience.

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

threat of indisputable wilderness.

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

survive for the generations that follow us.

In addition to whatever guilt-driven enterprises to save the planet a person might

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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The perception of overwhelming smallness when confronting a natural entity is

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

that Taniguchi expresses.

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

as if he was becoming his true self in that identity.

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

phenomenon, calling it instead a spiritual revolution.

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

find it in the god-given, natural world to which we used to belong.

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

beauty in the natural world around him.

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Works Cited

Baker, David. "Nature's Nature: A Gathering Of Poetry." Kenyon Review 37.3 (2015): 5-

8. Academic Search Premier. Web. 23 Sept. 2015.

Gifford, Bill. McCandless Should Not Be Compared to Thoreau, Tolstoy, and Beat

Writers. Wilderness Adventure in Jon Krakauers Into the Wild. Ed. Noel Merino.

Farmington Hills: Greenhaven Press 2015. 76-79. Print.

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):

603. Academic Search Premier. Web. 23 Sept. 2015.

Hodes, Ivan. There Is Much Misunderstanding About McCandless and Into the Wild.

Wilderness Adventure in Jon Krakauers Into the Wild. Ed. Noel Merino. Farmington

Hills: Greenhaven Press 2015. 101-105. Print.

Mossman, Mark. "The Rhetoric Of A Nature Writer: Subversion, Persuasion, And

Ambiguity In The Writings Of Edward Abbey." Journal Of American Culture 20.4

(1997): 79. Academic Search Premier. Web. 24 Sept. 2015.

Nightingale, Suzan. McCandless Was Neither Lucky nor Stupid, but Foolish.

Wilderness Adventure in Jon Krakauers Into the Wild. Ed. Noel Merino. Farmington

Hills: Greenhaven Press 2015. 57-61. Print.

Sweet, Timothy. "Projecting Early American Environmental Writing." Early American

Literature 45.2 (2010): 403-416. Academic Search Premier. Web. 23 Sept. 2015.
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Tindol, Robert. "Emersons Nature As An Early Manifestation Of The Biological

Sublime." Changing English: Studies In Culture & Education 20.4 (2013): 409-419.

Academic Search Premier. Web. 23 Sept. 2015.

Taniguchi, Stacy. The Wilderness Adventure Offers a Path to Self-Actualization.

Wilderness Adventure in Jon Krakauers Into the Wild. Ed. Noel Merino. Farmington

Hills: Greenhaven Press 2015. 107-119. Print.