Who Is Krakauer's Credibility In Into The Wild

Poison or Arrogance? To be credible or not to be credible? That is the question. Krakauer must have pondered this question when he began his quest for the life of Chris McCandless. Krakauer’s biased information provided and his exclusion of a lot of information hinder his credibility towards his persuasion of the reader's opinion of Chris’ decisions.
Biased journalism can cause people to not want to read a piece because it causes inaccurate information. “It is hardly unusual for a young man to be drawn to a pursuit considered reckless by his elders; engaging in risky behavior is a rite of passage in our culture no less than in most others. Danger has always held a certain allure…”(Krakauer 182). Every time McCandless is believed to make an error, such as not bringing a map with him and therefore did not have knowledge of the cabins …show more content…
He pushes the readers to believe that McCandless is more of a hero or god like figure for his arrogant and irrational behavior of not being prepared. Although Krakauer proves to not be credible in “Into the Wild” he also lacks his credibility in his claims of Chris’ death. In, 1996 Krakauer says that Chris’ died from an amount of seeds he ate, as a way to make Chris’ death not his fault. Yet, it was proven from "preliminary testing" of the seeds of wild potatoes consumed by McCandless showed that the plants contained a toxic compound and that "a compelling case can be made for these seeds having caused McCandless' death."Laboratory tests at the University of Alaska Fairbanks by organic chemist Thomas Clausen proved that the "rash intuitive leap" was wrong in 1997. Later on Krakauer claimed that it was from the seeds sitting in a bag and collecting mold and Chris ingested the mold causing his death. He claims “the mold produces this toxic alkaloid called swainsonine. My theory is essentially the same, but I've refined it

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