Chris McCandless: Caller of the Wild
By: Taylor DiPaula
Some people say that Chris McCandless was crazy and was over-confident; others say that he was a heroic fellow. I say that Chris was very heroic and confident young man. In my opinion, he had a good head on his shoulders. I think that he was trying to prove that you couldn’t rely on technology to get you through life. Sometimes people get too hooked on technology, that they don’t know how wonderful the outside world can be once you get a chance to live it.
In a sort of way, I think Chris wanted to just get away from his reality and take a look at the real world. Chris advices “Ron, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will first appear to you to be crazy.” (Krakauer pg. 57). He advised Ron Franz to do so because he really had no thrill in his life. He wanted him to take a good look at life before his time was gone. Chris truly felt that material figures in life were not worth spending time on.
Chris McCandless is a heroic fellow because he proved to everyone who ever doubted him that he could achieve his dream. In the end, he couldn’t overcome his hunger, but he was happy in the end. They found the last picture they took of him and he was smiling and looked as happy as can be in it! Chris states in one of his journal entries “DAY 100! I MADE IT!” (pg. 195). In my personal opinion, he didn’t care what others thought about his accomplishments, however he did want to prove that he could make it this far. But he whole heartedly wanted to achieve and succeed in his dream to make his life lived to the fullest. He only really cared about what he wanted in life. The only person that he truly cared about was Jan Burres because she was a motherly figure to him.
Many people tried to convince him that the trip the he was going to take to Alaska could be fatal. He only thought that he could make right up until he was making his trip up to Alaska. At that point he knew he would not be returning. Some people were impressed with his conceitedness, others just snippy about his love for nature. Gaylord tells us that he was very impressed that he was not like any other hitchhiker. He said “Alex was clean-shaven and had short hair, and I could tell by the language he used that he was a real sharp fella.” ( pg. 158-159). You could tell that Gaylord was very impressed with not only Chris’s over-all appearance, but also his intelligence.
One thing I do not and will never understand is why people think that Chris was sick in the head. You can never go wrong with someone who loves nature as much as Chris did. These days, not many people care about animals, plants, or the atmosphere. I can assume that people would think he is sick in the head because he would travel on foot and hitchhike with random strangers across the west coast, but he did that for his own pleasure; not for others to judge his doings. People need to understand that the world does not revolve around technology; it revolves around nature and how responsible we are for the earth. Whether or not people care about what Chris has done and achieved, should we really judge? Judging has not nor will ever get us to where we want to be in life.
Technology is not something we can rely on to keep our lives in check with reality. It is something to keep us busy when we have nothing left to do, something that we can use to keep in touch with others, something that we can go on without. Chris has proved to North America, Canada, and all the rest of the world that we can substitute technology with resources of nature. He also proved that sometimes nature isn’t always a bad thing to hold onto when your left with no technology at all. He left the whole world to think about what life would be without technology. Maybe technology is good; maybe it’s bad? We all have on our opinions on how we view life, but maybe we should try to change how people think about our planet.
