Into the Wild 15-ep

As a reader, I believe that in his novel, Into the Wild, John Krakauer attempts to show his readers that, in life, there is more beneath the surface. Throughout the book, we hear a lot about how people think McCandless was crazy, and that Krakauer was even crazier to defend McCandless, but the way I see it is that Krakauer knew that there was more to the story than just a boy who died in the woods of Antarctica. 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. He was just a kid who wanted adventure and to connect to the earth and not be influenced by societal pressure, like money, popularity, and fame. I also believe that Krakauer also did this for himself, because he saw himself in McCandless and felt drawn into writing a story doing McCandless justice. We can confidently say that Krakauer felt connected to McCandless because he states that, “As a young Man, I was unlike McCandless in many important regards; most notably, I possessed neither his intellect nor his lofty ideals. But I believe we were similarly affected by the skewed relationships we had with our fathers. And I suspect we had a similar intensity, similar headlessness, a similar agitation of the soul. “ (Krakauer 155). Krakauer, I believe, wrote this book to heal a part of himself that he saw in Chris McCandless. Even when critics called both him and McCandless crazy, he persisted and published a book showcasing the life of McCandless, which is less known, showing the characteristics of McCandless that bring him back to when he was young. I believe that Krakauer succeeds in conveying his message about why he wrote this book, because although he never outright states his reasons, his talented writing reveals them. The way he organizes this text helps him in the novel because he is building up the story and letting you wonder why he could have possibly written this novel, and then, towards the end of the novel, he includes some chapters of himself. He talks about connections between him and McCandless as well as his perspective on McCandless's death. So, although he doesn’t outright say why he wrote it, by including his point of view on the matter and by holding back his personal story towards the end helped his point get across. Krakauer's lack of distance in this novel really helped both the novel and his goals of connecting to McCandless. By inserting himself multiple times, such as traveling to Alaska to see the bus and where Chris was found, and by dedicating two chapters of his own personal journey to Alaska, really helps show how committed and his care towards trying to get his message across, and puts McCandless in a good light. One that is different then what all the critics and Alaskans are claiming McCandless is. By really inserting himself in the story and not distancing himself, he makes the story feel real to his readers. While this story is obviously real to an extent, having these moments with Krakauerer in the story makes it easier to picture the story in our heads and makes us feel like we were there right with him in these journeys and moments.