Afterword and Materials

I believe that the materials that Jon Krakauer gave help us understand the complexity of Chris McCandless’s story, as well as revealing that McCandless's legacy is opinionated and unknown. For most of the book, many believed that McCandless was unprepared for the wild and that Krakauer was crazy for writing about the death of crazy McCandless. However, even though McCandless walked into the wild unprepared, he lived the way he wanted to, and even though he passed away, he was able to achieve his goal of going to Alaska. His death has been a debate about whether his death was idiotic or admirable. While both of these can be true, the materials help us understand his death more and give clarity and understanding of his death. Krakauer’s materials talk more about his cause of death and how, “The debate over how McCandless died has persisted for two decades now, and many people have insisted that he simply starved to death. But I concluded that, were not for these seeds, he might very well have survived.” (Krakauer, How Chris McCandless died: An Update) This helps show the unknown and uncertainty that McCandless’s death has caused. His case has moved many people, including Krakauer, so there is no doubt that there would be conflicts. This helps support the fact that even after someone is dead, people will come up with their own theories and opinions towards a story. So, even though we got partial clarity over McCandless’s journey, it still leaves uncertainty and differentiating opinions towards the big question: how exactly did McCandless die?

How I believe these materials help confirm and complicate my beliefs towards McCandless is that he isn’t a reckless man; he could’ve simply made a little mistake that cost him his life and the way he is perceived. I have stated in my previous forum post about how Krakauer and McCandless are alike, and how even though many said that both Krakauer and McCandless were crazy, they were still brave in their own ways. “News articles talking about a boy dying in the woods of Antarctica, that's just surface level; Krakauer was brave enough to show that he wasn't just a crazy kid rebelling against his parents, that he had a story about why he did this, and his ‘why’ made him not seem as crazy as people are making him out to be.” (Moran, 15-Ep). This helps support the belief that McCandless wasn’t crazy; he just had different beliefs on how he wanted to live his life. While those beliefs could have potentially cost him his life, he did them anyway. Showing that he was brave and adventurous, which the materials helped confirm. The materials even state how Krakauer has, “[r]eceived multiple letters from people who admire McCandless for his rejection of conformity and materialism in order to discover what was authentic and what was not, to test himself, to experience the raw throb of life without a safety net.” (Krakauer, How Chris McCandless Died). So, even though his death and legacy may be controversial and sometimes uncertain, what we do know is that McCandless was brave in his own way, which the materials helped confirm for me.