Introduction to Into the Wild

This book is about a young man named Chris McCandless who travels all around the place and eventually ends up in Alaska. The book starts with people finding his body in an old abounded bus in Alaska. The book then traces his steps from the past two years. Its tells about the things he did and the places he went going all the way up to Alaska where his body was found. It tells of his adventures on how he survived the years of his life out in the wild, and why he did what he did. The author uses story's from young people who disappeared into the wilderness for the basis of his story and intertwines his own events into the story. Much of the information is from the point of view of Chris McCandless through a journal he left behind about what he is going through.  The author uses his journals and interviews people Chris McCandless met during his two years as a vagabond to piece together his story.

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About the Author

Jon Krakauer is the author of Into the Wild he also wrote other books that included Eiger Dreams, Into Thin Air, and many more. He was born in 1954 in Corvallis, Oregon. He was taught about mountaineering by his father, and after graduating from Hampshire College in 1976 he got a job as a carpenter and commercial salmon fisherman. He divided his time between Colorado, Alaska, and the Pacific Northwest, while working. During his fee time he would go mountain climbing. In 1977 he went alone to Alaska to climb an ice cap, and sound a new route to climb a peak called Devils Thumb. In 1992 he climbed the West Face of Cerro Torre in the Patagonian Andes. Next in May 1996 Jon Krakauer climbed Mount Everest with five other people, they all reached the top. When a storm hit them coming back down four of them lost their lives. Jon Krakauer wrote an article about his experience on Everest for a magazine, and won an award for it. He followed this by writing a book about Everest called "Into Thin Air", it is a #1 New York Times best seller, and has been translated into 21 different languages.  From there he continued to write many more books, his most recent is "Under the Banner of heaven: A Story of Violent Faith", published by Doubleday in July 2003.

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San Diego, California

A place in the U.S. that I have never been before is San Diego. I would love to visit this place to be able to see all the wonderful and unique beaches, and visit the Zoo there as well. The weather can get very high temperatures in the summer and is cool, and comfortable in the winter. What I would love to do if I visit San Diego is surf, and spend time with my family who live there. I would love to kayak in the caves on the ocean coast and just have fun on the beach. It would be great to see my family because I only see them at Christmas and sometimes in the summer.  I would travel by plane.

Chris McCandless

Direct Characterization- Writer explicitly tells the reader what a character looks and acts like.

Indirect Characterization- Writer shows the reader what the character does, says, thinks, and/or feels, and then lets the the reader draw his/her own conclusions about the character.

Direct:
1. "He was an extremely intense young man and possessed a streak of stubborn idealism that did not mesh readily with modern existence" (author's notes)
2.  "he didn't appear to be very old: eighteen maybe nineteen at the most" (pg 3 chapter 1).
3. "The rifle protruded from the young man's backpack, but he looked friendly enough" (pg 3-4 Chapter 1)
4. "five feet seven or eight with a wiry build" (pg 4 chapter 1)
5. "he pulled over for a hitchhiker, an amiable kid." (pg 16 chapter 3)
6. "McCandless was smallish with the hard, stringy physique of an itinerant laborer." (pg 16 chapter 3)
7. "There was something arresting about the youngsters eyes. Dark and emotive, they suggested a trace of exotic blood in his heritage." (pg 16 chapter 3)
8. "He had the kind of sensitive good looks that women would fuss over" (pg 16 chapter 3)
9. "His face had a strange elasticity: it would be slack and expressionless one minute, only to twist suddenly into a gaping over-sized grin." (pg 17 chapter 3)
10. "It was a different story with Alex. He was the hardest worker I've ever seen." (pg 18 chapter 3)

Indirect:
1. "Long captivated by the writing of Leo Tolstoy, McCandless particularly admired how the great novelist had forsaken a life of wealth and privilege to wander among the destitute" (author's notes).
2. "He had an answer for everything that I threw at him" (pg 6 chapter 1)
3. "Gallien asked weather or not he had a hunting license 'Hell no,' Alex scoffed. 'How I feed myself is none of the government's business. Fuck there stupid rules.'" (pg 6 chapter 1)
4. "there was just no talking the guy out of it." (pg 6 chapter 1)
5. "Alex insisted on giving Gallien his watch, his comb, and what he said was all of his money" (pg 7 chapter 1)
6. "he could talk for hours" (pg 16 chapter 3)
7. "A lot of folks here in town got pretty attached to old Alex" (pg 16 chapter 3)
8. " He never quit in the middle of something. If he started a job he'd finish it, it was almost like a moral thing for him." (pg 18 chapter 3)
9. "He set pretty high standers for himself" (pg 18 chapter 3)
10. "He read a lot. Used a lot of really big words. I think maybe part of what got him into trouble was that he did too much thinking." (pg 18 chapter 3).

I think that Chris McCandless was a hard worker and a very smart person from what I have read so far. He seems like he does not want all of the things that people seem to want; for example a new car. He sounds as if he wanted to live off of only the things that he needed. He set up high goals for himself that may have gotten him into dangerous situations that it would not get any 'normal' person in. Although he did "too much thinking" it sounds as if he had a good heart and was kind to anyone he met along the way during his travels.