Who Is Chris Mccandless

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Chris McCandless, a confident and self-reliant non-conformist, had the courage to risk all in pursuit of happiness. Challenging societal ideas that happiness came from material abundance or another being, McCandless wanted to prove that true happiness was found within oneself. He disliked society, not for how it treated him, but how dependent it was on the superficial. He sought to live in simplicity and rejected not only his privileged life and his family, but also his own identity. Disdainful of the materialistic, cash driven world, he detaches himself physically and mentally to build a new life as Alexander Supertramp. In Jon Krakauer’s book Into the Wild, McCandless abandoned his life and identity, as he went on this journey. Feeling enslaved by society’s focus, he felt the need to prove that acquiring self worth didn’t require material possessions and broke free from society’s dependencies. McCandless enjoyed being self-reliant and refused to accept anyone’s help. His extreme independence and confidence made him underestimate the difficulty of survival in the wilderness. “The only navigational aid in his possession was a tattered state road map he’d scrounged at a gas station…A little later Alex pulled out his crude map…” (Krakauer 5). His “crude map” revealed how unprepared he was for this intense journey and the lack of thought he put into his survival. Instead of taking the easy route to his destination and accepting Westerberg’s offer to buy him a ticket, Chris wanted to hitchhike, claiming that “ ‘Flying would be cheating. It would wreck the whole trip’” (Krakauer 67). He had strong confidence in himself that he would eventually get to his destination, even without any real idea of how long it’ll take to reach Alaska. He liked the challenge. Moreover, McCandless wanted to distance himself from the limited, monotonous society to saturate his mind with

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