Afterword + Additional Materials

These materials lead me to believe that his legacy is a lot more based on how someone interprets his legacy. Rather they see him as dumb and under prepared or as brave and admire his courage and idealism and how he did not conform to society expectations. One example that shows this is in How Chris McCandless Died where he says, “I’ve received thousands of letters from people who admire McCandless for his rejection of conformity and materialism in order to discover what was authentic and what was not.” Also when it says, “But I’ve also received plenty of mail from people who think he was an idiot who came to grief because he was arrogant.” These two quotes show how people have different opinions on him and there isn't a specific “Legacy” that he holds. These articles helped with conforming to what I already believed in my previous statement. One example is when I say in my 6-9 post, “I think that he was acting on impulse rather than actually thinking it through. I think he was very over confident because he only brought a small amount of resources and not nearly enough supplies to actually survive.” This shows how I believe he was underprepared and not ready for what he embarked on. In these it shows multiple examples of how he wasn't prepared for the journey that he set himself on. One example is also from How Chris McCandless DIed where it says, “...he had inadvertently poisoned himself by eating seeds from a plant commonly called wild potato, known to botanists as Hedysarum alpinum.” This shows how he didn't know what some of the plants were out there. Also that he didn't do any research on what would be safe to eat and that ended up leading to the primary reason he died. Another reason is from How Chris McCandless DIed: An Update where he talks about how people don't think it was the seeds that killed him. It says, “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 it not for these seeds, he might very well have survived.” This quote just further proves my point that the lack of knowledge and unpreparedness killed him.