1. Into the Wild
“I've decided I'm going to live this life for some time to come. The freedom and simple beauty is just too good to pass up.” ~Christopher McCandless

2. The Author Jon Krakauer is a writer and avid mountain climber.
Krakauer’s writing career picked up with Outside magazine, but he has written for many other publications including The New York Times
He has written several novels, the most acclaimed being Into Thin Air, an account of his successful yet disastrous climb of Mount Everest

3. The Book
Into the Wild was published in and spent two years on the NYT Bestseller List
He wrote the book after the success and great popularity of his Outside article on Christopher McCandless published in the January issue.

4. McCandless in the Media
“Death of an Innocent”
9,000-word article by Jon Krakauer appeared in Outside, Jan
Into the Wild novel by Jon Krakauer published 1996
“The Cult of Chris McCandless”
article by Matthew Power appeared in Men’s Journal, Sept. 2007
Into the Wild film produced 2007
Note: various other articles have been written in addition to television interviews and coverage.

5. The Krakauer-McCandless Connection
Krakauer saw a lot of connections between Chris and himself from their interests, to their world views, to their family lives.
“I identify with him a lot, and it's a sad story. I went back to the bus for the third time last September. I've become quite good friends with his family, we have sort of this weird bond” (Random House).

6. Methodology
Krakauer’s use of methodology in Into the Wild is an important focus of his biography. It is inevitably what makes him a “partial” biographer.
Methodology: the methods of organizing principles underlying a particular art, science or other area of study.
Manuscripts
Maps
Interviews
Epigraphs

7. Maps The maps are used to personalize the odyssey.
Visual rendering of where he’s been. We see Chris’s plight and the trek he has made.
Also see the absurdity of his journey: jumping from one place to the next.

8. Letters and Manuscripts
Personal connection to Chris.
He seems very candid and real in the letters.
Detection of his spite, anger and arrogance in the letters.
Puts on a different face in front of strangers: benevolent, spirited, kind.
The letters serve as his connection to the outside, evidence of his journey, and his bitter farewell to society.

9. Interviews
Story becomes real when we meet people Chris has befriended.
Provide personal account of his behavior.
Allow us to question his motives.
Aware of his inability to connect to humans.
Krakauer’s main attempt at being impartial.

10. Structure:
Krakauer starts the novel with the ending completely in mind.
We know of Chris’ death by chapter two.
The epigraph is detailing his trip into the Yukon Territory.
Westerberg’s letter is introduced before he is.
How is this effective story telling?
Why are we given the letter before a literary quote?

11. Chris McCandless “Alexander Supertramp”
Decomposed body found in bus (Alaska) in September 1992
From affluent East Coast family
Emory University alumni (1990)
Two-year “odyssey” from

13. Influences of and Allusions to Famous Men
Jack London ( )
Born in San Francisco to a poor family
Attended HS for one year, passed the entrance exams for UC Berkeley, but quit halfway through freshman year (did some writing)

14. Jack London continued
1897-took off to prospect for gold in the Klondike (part of Yukon Territory in NW Canada), got sick, and returned in less than a year
Klondike experience convinced him that “life is a struggle in which the strong survive and the weak do not”
Short stories and novels dramatize his belief that “civilized” beings are either destroyed or re-created in savage environments
Call of the Wild & White Fang
Millionaire, but an alcoholic, London suffered from kidney disease and depression
Pain was unendurable, so he committed suicide at age 40

15. Leo Tolstoy:
Russian writer; considered to the greatest authors of all time in some academic circles.
Studied law and Oriental languages at Kazan University
teachers said he was “unwilling and unable to learn”
diaries reveal his “insatiable thirst for a rational and moral justification of life”

16. Tolstoy continued
Military experience, but later a pacifist and considered a “moral” philosopher
Influenced Gandhi and MLK, Jr.
Drifted towards a more oriental worldview with Buddhist overtones,
learned to feel himself in other living creatures
Realist fiction, realistic depiction of 19th-century Russian life
War and Peace & Anna Karenina

17. Boris Pasternak:
Russian poet and novelist born in Moscow to a cultured Jewish family
Best known for his novel, Dr. Zhivago (1957)
Won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958
Presented Zhivago's inability to influence his own fate not as a fault, but as a sign that he was destined to become an artistic witness to the tragedy of his age. (War and revolution)
“I don't like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless and it isn't of much value. Life hasn't revealed its beauty to them.”
– Boris Pasternak

18. Henry David Thoreau: 1817-1862 Transcendentalist
“He seemed born for great enterprise and for command.” – Emerson (about Thoreau)
Abandons life in society and moves to Walden Pond. Writes Walden.
“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” -- Thoreau
“I wish to meet the facts of life.” – Thoreau
His essay, Civil Disobedience, inspired the idea of passive resistance used by Gandhi and MLK Jr.

19. Transcendentalist Philosophy
In order to understand the reality of God, the universe, the self, one must transcend (or go beyond) human experience in the physical world.
Anti-materialistic, Anti-civilization, Anti- conformist.
Optimistic outlook on life (only you have the power to change your own life.)

20. Transcendentalists Continued
“I unsettle all things. No facts are to me sacred; none are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker, with no past at my back.” (Henry David Thoreau)
Through intuition, people know that God is good, and God works through nature. Therefore, even the most tragic natural disasters can be explained on a spiritual level. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
Corruption results from a disconnect with God and nature.

21. The Naturalists’ Philosophy
A group of scientists/writers who presented a new way of thinking at the turn of the 20th Century.
Beliefs
Everyone is born with the history and knowledge of his/her ancestors
The knowledge lies dormant until factors bring it out
The Naturalists focused on the excess of “Human Nature”
Blamed lust, greed, evil, murder, crime on society and civilization

22. The Naturalists’ Philosophy
Foundation was based on Charles Darwin’s Philosophy
Everyone is an animal
Man has evolved, but he has retained certain animalistic qualities.
Survival of the Fittest
Man possesses this instinct
True self is revealed once a person is taken away from society.
Society = Laws and Reason
Society governs our behavior

23. from Education of a Wondering Man
“We are finally, all wonderers, in search of knowledge. Most of us hold the dream of becoming something better than we are, something larger, richer in some way more important to the world and ourselves. Too often, the way taken is the wrong way, with too much emphasis on what we want to have, rather than what we wish to become.” -Louis L’Amour

24. Questions to Consider
Heroes often embody the qualities of a culture. Examine McCandless as a possible hero. What evidence is there that he’s a hero to Americans? What qualities does he have that represent our own culture and what we value?
In what ways do the ideas of the transcendentalists resonate in modern America?

25. Questions to Consider
In life, what is most important: friends, family, or self? Are families, friends, or community essential to our happiness in any way? Can a person be completely content in solitude or without the acceptance of society? Which of these is most central to our happiness?
What does it mean to be successful?

26. Questions to Consider
How do we construct our own identities? What is the relationship between nature and the identity of Americans? In what other ways do we form our identities? What is your identity?
Americans have always been captivated by the idea of traveling west, or as Wallace Stegner wrote, “the road has always led west” (15). Why do Americans have such an obsession with travel, the road, and the road trip? What does it reveal about our culture and our desires that many people seek out the adventure of the great unknown?

27. Questions to Consider
What is your purpose? What is McCandless’? What can you learn about your own purpose from examining his?