Nicholas Aesch
ENG103 (9:30)
Ms. Kolsrud
November 14, 2013 Into The Wild

“Christopher McCandless's Influences, Relationships, and Preparation forAlaskas survival.”

The influences from the authors and books chris read, shows us all how he related himself from the quotes that are in this book. Chris carved in to a piece of wood that was discovered on the bus at the scene of chris' death, that Jack London is KING, and also used a passage from White Fang (9). The passage chris read says, Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway. The trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to lean toward each other, black and ominous, in the fading light. A vast silence reigned over the land. The land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughter, but of a laughter more terrible than any sadness-a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the Sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility. It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was the Wild, the savage, frozen- hearted Northland Wild (JACK LONDON, White Fang) (9). Chris related to this passage because it described what his present surroundings were exactually like. The passage from Leo Tolstoy tittled “Family Happiness” was also found with Chris McCandless's remains (15). Chris related this passage whit how he felt toward his family, and how he wanted to find adventure, excitement, and danger, along with the chance to sacrifice himself for his love. He also found himself a superabundance of energy, which persued him to take this adventure Into The Wild. Mark Twain influenced Chris with a passage that says, There was some books. . . . One was a Pilgram's Progress, about a man that left his family, it didn't say why. I read considerable in it now and then. The statement was interesting, but tough (Mark Twain, THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN) (61). Chris related to this pasage due to the fact that he did the same thing and left his family just as the man did, and chris also never told his family why. Many authors have had an influence on Christopher McCandless's life and his way of living whithin society.
The relationship between Chris and his family was that he loved his family even-though he did not get along with his father. Chris's relation with his parents, which had been usually courteous since his graduation from high school, deteriorated significantly that summer, and left his father Walt an mother Billie wondering why (121). Chris's smoldering anger, it turns out, was fueled by a discovery that he'd made two summers earlier , during his cross country wondering (121). Then discovery that Chris made was all founded when he was in California at the time when he called on a number of old family friends who still lived there, and from their answers th his queries, Chris pieced together the facts of his father's previous marriage and subsquent divorce-facts to which he hadn't been privy (121). The information that Chris found out was that his father divorce was not clean or amicable parting, and how his father Walt was continuing a secrative relationship with his ex-wife Marcia, while in a relationship with Billie whom is Chris' mother. Chris was a person with a lot of bottled up anger, and had no one or no where to turn to so that he could talk about what was bothering him.
Chris' perparation and wilderness skills weren't where they needed to be in order to survive in Alaska at the time of his adventure. Alex also know as Christopher McCandless, had been picked up while hitchhiking in Alaska by a man Jim Gallien, and stated that when he pick chris up he told him his name was Alex (4). Gallien said that Alex's backpack looked as though it only weighed twenty or thirty pounds, which struck Jim Gallien-an accomplished hunter and woodsman- as an improbably light load for a stay of several months in the back country, especially so early in the sping (4). Chris wasn't carrying near as much food and gear that you'd expect a guy to be carryingfor that kind of trip recalled Gallien (4). Chris had no ax,no bug dope, no snowshoes, and no compass(5). Due to the lack of Chris not having the proper wilderness skills and preparation, Chris' death shows us what can happen when the consideration for mother nature is not respected.
In conclusion, to this essay the life lessons that I have received from Jon Krakauer, and Christopher McCandless are that in life everyone needs people, and to always follow your dreams because life is to short to not go and see the world for yourself, just when you do something to plan ahead of time, and to respect nature along with our surroundings, because you never know when something like this could happen to you or someone dearly close to you.

Work Cited Krakauer, Jon. Into The Wild. First Anchor Books Edition, 1997