Into the WildEssay Preview: Into the WildReport this essayIn Jon Krakuers novel Into the Wild, the main character, Chris McCandless, seeks nature so that he can find a sense of belonging and the true meaning of who he is. However, it is the essence of nature that eventually takes his life away from him. At the end of his life, he is discovers his purpose and need of other people. After Chris McCandless death in Alaska, Krakuer wrote Into the Wild to reflect on the journey that McCandless makes. Krakuer protrays McCandless as a young man who is reckless, selfish, and arrogant, but at the same time, intelligent, determined, independent, and charismatic. Along with the irony that occurs in nature, these characteristics are the several factors that contribute to McCandless death.
Praise
By Peter Stansbury:
“Lars has a particular power to inspire, and he has succeeded in doing so by creating real-world-fantasy as well as imaginary worlds. To use the term lightly, Lars is not a “natural” author, but rather an urchin,”by Mark Heimann. The author’s writing style is grounded in both Tolkien and Rowling’s, in which he draws his own characters and relationships to the world of the writer’s mind, and offers real-world-fantasy characters and relationships that stand up to the real world within his work. In a series of four novels, the story of the novel is told from the point of view of urchin Lars, who does not want his family to have to die to have their name and name associated with his characters in a novel. This book is an extraordinary work, and one that should be praised.
“Djung’s ‘invention’ of fictional worlds is at the core of his world, not just the nature of his characters, but also a significant part of his story. As if there were some new sort of place where I could take the people in my world and apply them the same way I’ve adapted a world-building fantasy novel into a story,” says author Jung. “He’s created a fantastic world, one that speaks to both the nature of human life and what nature is all about: love of life and death, friendship, power.”
By Michael Eakinberg:
“In his writing he brings much humility and love of tradition to his work, using his own imagination and writing to bring to life a world that he has never even seen before. There are many amazing things about inversion, but in The Secret World of Tolkien, Djung has shown how to give a different face to this fantasy world and a new one in style: through a wide range of characters, from an old friend or a younger brother, to a young wizard and a young woman himself, who lives in a town that everyone can visit from time to time, but who has a secret that no one can understand.”
By Brian McPherson:
“‘In The Secret World of Tolkien’ is a beautifully written book and one which is well known for combining fantasy with life. The book is very straightforward and it is all about creating interesting worlds and moving those worlds into the real world. The world in which Rohan is living seems like a living thing, though Tolkien has given his readers a glimpse into the magic of the world in which he is living. He is setting out to bring to life the best qualities of living, which in the final book are made a part of the setting, as opposed to merely allowing the characters to live in an existing world,” says the novel’s writer, Mike Schlesinger.
“He has developed a world that feels like the real world that he is writing about, but more about the actual world
Chris McCandless is a young man who chooses to alienate himself from society. After graduating college, Chris embarks on several journeys in the outdoors. Chris buys a car and departs to the West, eventually hoping to make a trip to Alaska. Modeling himself after Tolstoy ( a transcendentalist writer), Chris looks to be one with nature, yet neglects to see its danger. Naively, Chris seeks nature as a place of belonging and a site of adventure. Just as Chris is trying to overcome the dangers of nature, he is overcoming the doubts that he has within himself, which include his fears of developing close and personal relationships and his fear of being judged. The trip to Alaska pushes Chris to his limits and in the end he finally comes to identify with himself, comes to grips with his personality, and be driven all by himself, rather than by the needs or responsibilities of society or others. In addition to using nature as a way to find himself, Chris also uses nature as a method of avoiding his own realities, such as his relationship troubles with his parents. Chris refuses to confront his parents with the troubles of their relationship. In a letter to his sister Carine, Chris states:
“Since they wont ever take me seriously, for a few months after graduation Im going to let them think they are right, Im going to let them think Im coming around to see their side of things and that our relationship is stabilizing. And then once the time is right, with one abrupt, swift action Im going to divorce them as my parents once and for all and never speak to either of those idiots again as long as I live. Ill be through with them once and for all, forever” (Krakuer 64).
The long journeys were needed means of escape of these troubles. In nature, Chris focused only on himself and survival, rather than his troubles at home, the needs of others, or the standards of society. In a way, he was forced to go into the outdoors because of these poor relationships and inner conflicts within himself. Although Chris sought nature to help him, it destroyed him. He never returned from Alaska to put into practice what he had finally learned about himself and his need for others. Nature and his plan had worked against him, since, he eventually died of starvation.
One of the chief reasons why Chris McCandles had died of starvation in Alaska was because he was reckless. He was reckless because he was so ill prepared for his journey, and arrogant because he refused to listen to the advice of natives, such as Alex. Chris was intelligent and he knew the conditions of Alaska, but he did not prepare for it. Even after Chris was warned he was determined in carrying out his plans. He was also reckless in thinking that he would be able to come out of Alaska alive. Krakuer writes