The known world is a place full of luxuries and comfort, the cruelty and hurt hides behind the mask of lovely and stays hidden until it is either purposefully or accidentally discovered. Once seen one can no longer live like before, and must make a decision on how to continue life. In both stories Siddhartha and Into the Wild, the protagonists leave their known world to enter a new one and encounter similar characters along the way, but their motivations for leaving their current lives differed. In Siddhartha and Into the Wild, Chris and Siddhartha leave the world as they know it and choose to go on a journey far away from home. Chris encounters real life people that resemble the characters of Siddhartha and what they represent. Chris left …show more content…
During the course of their journey away from home Chris and Siddharta encounter people that mirror each other. Wayne Westerberg shows Chris the ropes of business, he encourages the material life that business promotes. He drags Chris back into the material world, but after their encounter Chris is more interested in his final destination of Alaska. Wayne mirrors Kamaswami who teaches Siddhartha the ins and outs of business. This originally attracted Siddhartha and he got caught up in all of the action. “The world caught him; pleasure, covetousness, idleness, and finally also that vice that he had always despised and scorned as the most...as a custom of the ordinary people.” (pg.78-79) Both had been brought into the world of materialism and both eventually left it realizing that there was something more out there. …show more content…
When Siddhartha was young he had everything, everyone adored him, and he had all the things any person could possibly want at his fingertips. But he often found himself feeling unfulfilled and empty. So he left that world to go find himself and to fill the void in himself. “One must find the source within one’s own Self, one must possess it. Everything else was seeking-a detour, error. These were Siddhartha’s thoughts; this was his thirst, his sorrow.” (pg.7-8) After leaving his home, Chris described his home life. How it was a complete lie, all of the happiness was fake and after learning the truth about his parents he could no longer go back. Chris knew who he was as a person, but needed to escape the toxic environment he was previously in. His dad had left his old family because Chris’ mom had gotten pregnant with Chris. Chris and his sister were completely unaware of their parents previous lives until a family friend of his parents told him. His whole life was a mixture of secrets and materialism. Chris’ parents offered to buy him a new car, because his didn’t look “nice.” But Chris refused, not caring about the judgement of others. Chris didn’t find happiness is what kind of car he had or how “perfect” his family seemed. He wanted to escape to judgement of others and the fake world his parents tried to keep him