Summary:
In his novel Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer shares his personal experiences in the wilderness in an attempt to convince his audience that he has much in common with the man around whom the story revolves. In a particular expedition, Krakauer seems ambivalent during his journey, and that ambivalence is analyzed here.
Jon Krakauer's bestseller, Into the Wild, revolves around the true story of a young man named Chris McCandless and his two-year, transcontinental adventure ending in Alaska. The discovery of his decomposing body in April 1992 eventually made national headlines and prompted Krakauer to write an article of McCandless' journey in Outside, a naturalistic magazine. For months after its publication, responses flooded into the magazine mailroom. Some readers admired McCandless "for his courage and noble ideals." Others considered him an "idiot, a wacko, a narcissist who perished out of arrogance and stupidity," "undeserving of the considerable media attention he received." It was this quarrel that encouraged Krakauer to develop his article into a full-blown novel. Krakauer does not claim to be an impartial biographer; in a "new journalistic" effort, he makes his personal convictions apparent. In two.....
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