Into the Wild by John Krakauer Book Review

People spend their whole lives trying to grasp the concept of their identity. It is a daunting concept that is hard to answer, what makes a person distinctive compared to the vast majority. Throughout the book, Into the Wild by John Krakauer, Chris McCandless was on a journey to find his true identity. Chris McCandless was trying to form a new identity due to issues within his family and the society surrounding him.

In the book, Into the Wild by John Krakauer, Chris McCandless is going into the wild hoping to find a new identity. One of the reasons he did this was because he was trying to escape problems with his parents. “It was a stressful existence. Both Walt and Billie are tightly wound, emotional and, loath to give ground. Now and then, the tension erupted in verbal sparring. In moments of anger, one or the other often threatened divorce.” (Krakauer 107). Carine, Chris McCandless's little sister, explains an overview of what their home life with their parents was like.  Chris and Carine often had to look out for one another because their parents weren’t getting along with each other. “Chris’s relations with his parents, which had been unusually courteous since his graduation from high school deteriorated significantly that summer, and Walt and Billie had no idea why… Chris’s  smoldering anger, it turns out, was fueled by a discovery he’d made two summers earlier, during his cross-country wanderings. When he arrived in California, he’d visited the El Segundo neighborhood where he’d spent the first six years of his life. He called several old family friends who still lived there, and from the answers to his queries, Chris pieced together the facts of his father’s previous marriage and subsequent divorce- facts to which he hadn’t been privy.” (Krakauer 121). Walt McCandless was initially married to his wife Marcia, but they soon got divorced. Walt had then met Billie and had Chris and Carine. However, Walt still saw Marcia and created a family with her. He juggled and moved between the two for a while. Chris could not deal with the constant pressure of his family life at home, causing him to venture out into the Alaskan wilderness. 

Another reason Chris ventured out into the Alaskan wilderness to find a new identity was that he often found the society around him intoxicating. “Driving west out of Atlanta, he intended to invent an utterly new life for himself, one in which he would be free to wallow in unfiltered experience. To symbolize the complete severance from his previous life, he even adopted a new name. No longer would he answer to Chris McCandless; he was Alexander Supertramp, master of his own destiny.”(Krakauer 23). Chris McCandless wanted to go out into the wild so that way he could become more in touch with the world around him. He wanted to learn to accept the little things in life. This would help benefit him when creating his new identity because then he would learn to be more appreciative of the things he has. “By then Chris was long gone. Five weeks earlier, he loaded all his belongings into his little car and headed west without an itinerary. The trip was to be an odyssey in the fullest sense of the word, an epic journey that would change everything.” (Krakauer 22). Chris McCandless wanted to create an idea of spontaneity during his retreat in Alaska. To escape from society, Chris McCandless had to get rid of the monotonous everyday lifestyle he had been living since he was a kid. Chris needed to be away from society to understand himself and to get a sense of who he candidly was. 

One may argue that Chris McCandless was not in search of a new identity. They believe that Chris McCandless went into the wild to appreciate the persona that he has already had. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth, “By the beginning of August 1990, Chris’s parents had heard nothing from their son since they’d received his grades in the mail, so they decided to drive down to Atlanta for a visit. When they arrived at his apartment, it was empty and a FOR RENT sign taped to the window. The manager said that Chris had moved out at the end of June. Walt and Billie returned home to find that all the letters they’d sent their son that summer had been returned in a bundle.” (Krakauer 22). Chris McCandless had made a planned escape and abandoned his family. He never wrote to them again. Yet, he could joyously write letters to people like Wayne Westerburg. Westerburg was someone that Chris met during his travels. 

Chris McCandless had gone into the wild with the idea that when he came out he would be a new man. McCandless had thought that when he returned, he would be more appreciative and understanding of the world around him.