Into the Wild question

“Like Chris McCandless, I was a raw youth who mistook passion for insight and acted according to an obscure, gap-ridden logic. We had a similar intensity, a similar heedlessness, a similar agitation of the soul.”

“We were similarly affected by the skewed relationships we had with our fathers.”

“The fact that I survived my Alaska adventure, and McCandless did not survive his was largely a matter of chance.” (155)

But was it really just chance?

Today, let’s focus more on the author rather than the character of this piece. Four characteristics of Krakauer stand out to me: his reasons to escape, his relationship with his parents, his expectations being lowered, and the forgiveness of his parents. Like McCandless, Krakauer had similar reasons to escape, and a similar relationship with his parents. Neither were satisfied with the way their fathers brought them up, and believed the only way out of their “volatile and extremely complicated ways” was to completely disconnect themselves from their known lives. (147) The two young men differed in the other two characteristics though, and perhaps it was these differences that proved to be fatal; Chris failed to lower his expectations when challenged by nature, and could not find it within himself to forgive his parents. So my question for you is, what if Chris had lowered his expectations like Krakauer had? What if he had tried to understand and forgive his father? How does Krakauer show strength of character that Chris does not possess? Do you believe that these four characteristics were the reasoning behind Krakauer’s survival or do you agree with him that it is simply chance?