1. A Final Look into the life of Christopher Johnson McCandless

2. Transcendentalism An individual is the spiritual center of the universe - and in an individual can be found the clue to nature, history and, ultimately, the cosmos itself. The structure of the universe literally duplicates the structure of the individual self - all knowledge, therefore, begins with self-knowledge. “ Know Thyself ” - Aristotle

3. One More Time: The Basic Tenets of Transcendentalism Everything in the world, including human beings, is a reflection of the divine soul (each individual soul is made of the same stuff as the universal World-Soul). The physical facts of the natural world are a doorway to the spiritual or ideal world. People can use their intuition to behold God’s spirit revealed in nature or in their own souls. Self-reliance and individualism must outweigh external authority and blind conformity to custom and tradition. Spontaneous feelings and intuition are superior to deliberate intellectualism and rationality.

4. Self-reliance and individualism must outweigh external authority and blind conformity to custom and tradition. Spontaneous feelings and intuition are superior to deliberate intellectualism and rationality. To put it simply: According to Emerson, we are capable of evil because we are separated from a direct, intuitive knowledge of God. But if we simply trust ourselves - that is trust in the power each of has to know God directly - then we will realize that each of us is also part of the Divine Soul, the source of all good.

7. Is Chris a hero? How would you characterize his journey to Alaska? An escape? A journey? A Quest? Why should we care about McCandless and his fate? What is the importance of the father-son relationship in the text? McCandless takes on an alternative identity on his journey. Why did he do that? If you were to go on a similar journey, what alternative identity would you choose and where would you go? How does McCandless treat the world around him (land, people, material possessions, nature)? How does the evidence reported by Jon Krakauer support the notion that Chris McCandless was a 20th Century transcendentalist? (A full credit response would address all tenets of Transcendental philosophy and cite evidence from the text)