Christopher McCandless in Krakauer’s Into the Wild is without contest an epitomic example of an idealistic young man He is simply in rebellion of the values set before him by society and his family. McCandless may be thus considered so, and this conclusion may be brought forth by investigating how McCandless in turn interpreted his world. As we know, McCandless, obviously a romantic as indicated by the way he perceived works by various poets and authors- specifically Thoreau- viewed his environment unconventionally to say the least. McCandless, throughout Krakauer’s summary of his life, is undoubtedly subjected not only to judgements made by the reader, but also those of readers of newspapers explicitly mentioned by Krakauer. Even in the face of these judgements, even those proposing McCandless to be a reckless narcissist, I can surely propose that McCandless…show more content… Krakauer accomplishes this by noting claims made by Alaskan residents in reaction to McCandless’s death. For example, he cites a correspondent saying in response to an article about McCandless’s death that “I see nothing positive at all about Chris McCandless's lifestyle or wilderness doctrine” (Krakauer 71). He simply does this to appeal to the counter-argument, but a much more substantial portion of the book is spent discussing the stories of other people while drafting connections between McCandless and these others. I would say that the amount of content spent talking about others’ anecdotes, found in chapters eight, nine, fourteen and fifteen, explicitly amounts to more than that of the content regarding McCandless’s criticisms, which are primarily found in the beginning of chapter eight. Elaborating on this, Krakauer develops a compelling case for the idealistic
