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.