Epilogue

Ten months after learning of their son's death, Walt and Billie McCandless travel with Krakauer by helicopter to visit the "Magic Bus". Krakauer notes that it takes the helicopter fifteen minutes to cover the distance it took McCandless four days to walk.

After spending time quietly walking around the bus, Billie finally climbs inside. Both parents can smell their dead son's jeans. Walt places a memorial plaque inside the door. Billie arranges a bouquet beneath the plaque, and leaves survival supplies and a first-aid kit under the bed.

Billie tells Krakauer, "Many people have told me that they admire Chris for what he was trying to do. If he'd lived, I would agree with them. But he didn't, and there's no way to bring him back...Most things you can fix, but not that" (199).

Krakauer ends this story of adventure that results in tragedy with a low-key, but no less heartbreaking scene. It is because of Krakauer's reporting and writing skills and his capacity for empathy with the misguided young man that the reader is able to share the family's sense of loss, rather than merely judging McCandless for his accomplishments and failures.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0D4DSIi-PuY

Style Analysis #3: Writing Style part 2

Although Krakauer keeps his distance from the content for much of the book, during the latter parts he incorporates some emotion into the story in order to develop key themes and ideas. In fact, in the foreword Krakauer admits that "a dispassionate rendering of the tragedy [would be] impossible" (2) for him to write.

Krakauer recalls his own youthful assault on a notorious Alaskan peak, in the hope that drawing a parallel would help the reader understand McCandless's motives and ideals. He describes his long time obsession with reaching the summit as paramount to any potential fatal consequences. McCandless was all too similar, so transfixed by his romanticized idea of a panacean wilderness that he chose to face death head-on.

Rhetoric Study

Krakauer creates an appeal to ethos by using strategies that demonstrate his qualifications to write about and make comparisons with McCandless, while also using strategies to establish that McCandless was qualified and sane enough to make his own decisions regarding his Alaskan odyssey. 

One of the main reasons Krakauer wrote this novel was because he feels that he and McCandless have many similar traits, for example:

“As a youth, I am told, I was willful, self-absorbed, intermittently reckless, moody. I disappointed my father in the usual ways. Like McCandless, figures of male authority aroused in me a confusing medley of corked fury and hunger to please. If something captured my undisciplined imagination, I pursued it with a zeal bordering on obsession, and from the age of seventeen until my late twenties that something was mountain climbing” (134). 

This passage appeals to ethos because it describes Krakauer's awareness to McCandless’s personality and recognizes that he is able to write about him because he was a version of him. Ultimately, it allows Krakauer to further develop his belief that McCandless was a rational person with legitimate thoughts and concerns, merely misguided in his journeys.

This passage also appeals to pathos. While Krakauer's and McCandless's decisions may have been questionable, the audience is still able to relate to this sort of yearning for adventure and renewal, thus creating emotional appeal.

In his description of his youth, Krakauer uses powerful words with almost whimsical connotative word pairings. This shows that Krakauer doesn't take himself too seriously. This allows the reader to relate to him more, and therefore to McCandless.

Character Study

Christopher McCandless

"'You could tell right away that Alex was intelligent,' Westerberg reflects...'He read a lot. He used a lot of big words. I think maybe part of what got him into trouble was that he did too much thinking. Sometimes he tried too hard to make sense of the world, to figure out why people were bad to each other so often. A couple of times I tried to tell him it was a mistake to get too deep into that kind of stuff, but Alex got stuck on things. He always had to know the absolute right answer before he could go on to the next thing'" (18).

McCandless is an intelligent, extremely intense young man with a streak of stubborn idealism. He grows up in a wealthy suburb of Washington, D.C., where he succeeds both academically and athletically and graduates from Emory University. After graduating, he gives all of his savings to charity, goes by the name of "Alexander Supertramp," abandons most of his possessions, and spends two years hitchhiking and traveling around the western United States. He then hitchhikes to Alaska, where he walks alone in the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. He is found dead in September 1992.

Carine McCandless

"Chris and Carine...[had] been best friends from an early age, spending hours together building forts out of cushions and blankets in their Annandale living room. 'He was always really nice to me,' Carine says, 'and extremely protective. He'd hold my hand when we walked down the street'" (80).

Carine is McCandless's younger sister, with whom he has an extremely close relationship and is the only family member that her brother is able to share his feeling with. Carine looks a lot like her older brother, and is also energetic, self-assured, opinionated, and a high-achiever. But unlike McCandless, she is very gregarious, forgiving of people’s faults, and fits happily into capitalist society.

McCandless remains in contact with Carine while he is at college and during his Westward journeys. The two share angry words about their parents, though Carine tells Krakauer that she has a much better relationship with her parents now having forgiven them.

Walt McCandless

"'The fragility of crystal is not a weakness but a fineness. My parents understood that fine crystal glass had to be cared for or may be shattered. But when it came to my brother, they didn’t seem to know or care that their course of their secret action brought the kind of devastation that could cut them. Their fraudulent marriage and our father’s denial of his other son was for Chris a murder of every day’s truth. He felt his whole life turned like a river suddenly reversing the direction of its flow. Suddenly running uphill. These revelations struck at the core of Chris’s sense of identity. They made his entire childhood seem like fiction. Chris never told them he knew and made me promise silence as well.'"

McCandless’s father is an aerospace engineer and the father of eight children from two marriages. He is taciturn, passionate, and stubborn. Much like his son, he is also brilliant, musically gifted, and temperamental.

Walt becomes the root of Krakauer’s theories on why McCandless ran off as he did. Walt himself is wealthy, self-made through hard work and education. He fathered five children with his first wife, Marcia, and later Chris Chris and Carine with Billie, his second wife.

For much of his life, Walt holds his son to very high expectations, which Chris attempts to live up to. During a fight between his parents, he overhears that his father was still married to Marcia for seven years while with Billie, attempting to maintain a home with both women. The two women discover what he’s done when Chris is only two years old, forcing Walt and Billie to move. It takes four more years before Walt divorces Marcia and marries Billie, and their children remember frequent fighting.

McCandless is angered by the hypocrisy of his father’s expectations. After five years of dwelling on his anger, he decides that he can no longer stand the duplicity of humanity and disappears, attempting to teach his parents a lesson as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBtHiRRzgLU

Jan Burres & Bob

"'I have a son about the same age as Alex was, and we've been estranged for a few years now. So I said to Bob, 'Man, we got to take this kid with us. You need to school him about some things''" (25).

Jan and Bob are a middle-aged, itinerant couple who meet McCandless in the summer of 1990 when he is searching for edible berries alongside U.S. Highway 101. The two travel around the West selling knick-knacks at flea markets. Estranged from her own son, Jan takes a special interest in McCandless. They become close, and he stays in written contact with her until submerging into the Alaskan wilderness.

Jan and Bob take care of McCandless, attempting to nurture his desire to live free of society, but also warn him of the dangers of his actions. Jan tries to convince him he is making a mistake and to send him back to his mother, though she fails. Although frustrated by him, she also finds him intriguing and decides that he will eventually grow out of his youthful afflictions. As a motherly figure in his life, Burres is a key individual in his journey.

Wayne Westerberg

"Westerberg, a hyperkinetic man with thick shoulders and a black goatee, owns a grain elevator in Carthage...In the fall of 1990...On the afternoon of September 10...he pulled over for a hitchhiker, an amiable kid who said his name was Alex McCandless. There was something arresting about the youngster's eyes...[they] conveyed a vulnerability that made Westerberg want to take the kid under his wing."

Westerberg picks up McCandless when he is hitchhiking in Montana in the fall of 1990. He offers him a job at his grain elevator in Carthage, South Dakota, and the two become close friends during McCandless's stay.

After McCandless runs from his father and severs ties with his family, Westerberg becomes a close friend and father figure. Because he does not judge McCandless, he acts an inspiration to him. He represents the middle class and the opposite of everything that McCandless's father represents. McCandless revels in their deep friendship, but doesn't stay in Carthage long enough to really get to know him, instead choosing to wandering off whenever he gets the chance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQsKXiSCqDI

Ronald Franz

"One can only speculate about why Franz became so attached to McCandless so quickly, but the affection he felt was genuine, intense, and unalloyed. Franz has been living in a solitary existence for many years. He had no family and few friends. A disciplined, self-reliant man, he got along remarkably well despite his age and solitude. When McCandless came into his world, however, the boy undermined the old man's meticulously constructed defenses. Franz relished being with McCandless, but their burgeoning friendship also reminded him how lonely he'd been. The boy unmasked the gaping void in Franz's life even as he helped fill it. When McCandless departed as suddenly as he'd arrived, Franz found himself deeply and unexpectedly hurt" (45).

Ronald Franz is an eighty-year-old widower, devout Christian, and veteran who picks McCandless up hitchhiking and takes a strong liking to him. His son and wife passed away long ago while he was away in Japan for the military, leaving him an empty man. Because of his grief, Franz becomes a kind, yet lost soul trying to find meaning in life. He adopts many Okinawan orphans, sending two of them to medical school. When he meets McCandless, he immediately feels the desire to offer his advice. He feels a powerful, fatherly affection for McCandless, and offers to adopt him.

Ultimately, Franz becomes a foil for McCandless by showing him that if he does not change his ways he will grow old and lonely. When Franz learns of McCandless's death, he starts to drink and renounces his belief in God. In the end, Franz is alone, on the road, and hoping for death.

Style Analysis #2: Quotes

Krakauer begins every chapter of Into the Wild with a quotation from a renowned author, such as Tolstoy, Thoreau, and Jack London. On a few occasions, Krakauer quotes McCandless himself. The quote chosen always pertains to the upcoming information in the chapter.

One of the objectives of these quotes is to clarify that the desires and drives which pushed McCandless to the edge of his endurance were not unique to him. Krakauer uses quotations from the inspirations behind McCandless’s adventures, the majority being from Tolstoy, whose writings profoundly resonated with McCandless.

Chapter 2 begins with a quotation from McCandless himself:

"Jack London is King"
Alexander Supertramp
May 1992

Krakauer explains that this was carved into a piece of wood where McCandless's body was found. He then follows this with a quote from Jack London's White Fang:

"...It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life..."

Krakauer uses the quotations to illustrate and explain the passionate drive which compelled McCandless to push himself so far into the inhospitable Alaskan wilderness.

Through quotations, Krakauer foreshadows the upcoming events of the chapter. For example, a quote from Tolstoy's Family Happiness opens chapter three. He uses this quote because it was found underlined in McCandless's copy of the book that was discovered with his remains. The quote is about the love of danger, which obviously pertains to McCandless. This quote also leads Krakauer to talk about the McCandless family.

Symbols

The Yellow Datsun

McCandless chooses to abandon his beloved yellow Datsun after a rainstorm causes a river to overflow into the wash he was camped out at and flooded the car's engine. The car is symbolic of McCandless's disgust with the generally materialistic mannerisms of humanity. Americans value their cars, and he is able to leave his in the desert.

Deserts

Deserts in Into the Wild function primarily as means for McCandless to challenge himself, and subsequently they illustrate his hubris. Not only does he fear the desert, but he believes it has been put there purely in order to test his competence.

Mountains 

Mountains function not as scenery, nor are they especially significant geologically or historically in the book. Instead, like a desert, a mountain is an obstacle to be conquered; a way of testing one's capability and character. This is especially evident in the chapters where Krakauer recalls his own youth.

Moose

The moose that McCandless shoots and then, heartbreakingly, fails to preserve is emblematic of his relationship to the wild in general. Moose meat could have prevented McCandless from starving to death. Because of his hubris, however, he isn't prepared for the enormous task of curing the flesh and ultimately fails at it. The consequences are fatal.

"Magic Bus"

Presumably named by McCandless after a song by The Who, the bus represents the good fortune he repeatedly encounters during his journey through the American West. The odds of him finding an abandoned bus just waiting for him to live in while forging for berries are one in a million. However, McCandless also dies inside the bus, indicating that his luck has run out.

Rivers

As with deserts and mountains, rivers test McCandless's survival skills. Ironically, rivers typically symbolize life, and unlike the other natural formations in Into the Wild, it is a river that defeats McCandless and aids in his death. Because he failed to predict that the river separating the "Magic Bus" from civilization will swell with melted snow, he cannot cross it in late summer when he intended to leave the woods. And because he has no map, McCandless is unaware of options for fording the raging waters.

Style Analysis #1: Writing Style

Krakauer executes Into the Wild in a straightforward style, objectively presenting the events of McCandless's life. His language is concise and easy to understand, making his writing accessible to readers. While many biographers tend to create imaginary-even if likely-scenes and events to make the account read more like a narrative, Krakauer instead opts for a journalistic approach to his writing.

For the majority of the book, he employs an informative tone, using friendly language and logical analysis in order to make McCandless's story as clear as possible. He constructs a body of evidence to support all of his claims by interviewing friends and family of McCandless, and anyone he came in contact with while on the road; by providing background information on the different settings throughout the book; and by incorporating selections from McCandless's own journal.

Through this extensive research, Krakauer appeals to ethos and logos. He acknowledges counterarguments but elaborates with just enough detail to disprove them without rambling unnecessarily, making his arguments all the more persuasive. Since some aspects of McCandless's final weeks will remain a mystery, this type of in-depth research proves especially helpful in filling in gaps with the most likely scenarios.