Into The Wild

During the first lockdown I watched the Sean Penn directed film ‘Into the Wild’. I had often seen people talking about it on social media but had only just gotten round to watching it last summer. After I watched the film I found my self completely mesmerised by the true story and so I bought the book it was based on. I read it in a couple of days, staying up till four am to finally finish it. I struggled to fall asleep that night, my mind couldn’t stop thinking about the story, perhaps also the horrible death that Chris McCandless experienced.

The Chris McCandless story might at first seem unassuming; but it is in fact extraordinary and for some reason – that I can’t quite explain – it resonated with me deeply. In a nutshell, McCandless decided to travel around the West Coast of the United States after he graduated from college, with the ultimate goal of travelling to Alaska and living off of the land for a substantial amount of time. In order to do this he gave all his savings to charity, burnt any cash he had as well as his social security card and left his car in the desert and began travelling around the country. This already seems like a drastic move. After all he didn’t need to give up his savings to go travelling, in fact it would have helped to have had some money, but that went against what he had believed in. McCandless wanted to live off of the land and return to a simplistic way of living that, stripped down to the basics, didn’t conform to the capitalist trappings of society. His imagining of this life was perhaps founded in his reading of Thoreau and London, which is sadly ironic as neither of these authors ever lived off of the land in the way that Chris McCandless intended. I think this romanticism of the wild was what contributed, to some extent, to McCandless’ untimely death.

Civilisation has always romanticised the land and the wild, nature is a significant aspect of every culture and it is my opinion that McCandless got caught up in these ideas about the land. Many people have argued that living in nature would be an ideal way to revert to a simpler life. However I don’t think that this can ever truly be achieved; we can never return to complete wilderness that has not been touched by society. Even if there is an area of land that is unpopulated – like Alaska in Chris’ case – it is still influenced by society. Society projects its ideals onto the wilderness, it romanticises it and it becomes the embodiment of what an ideal world would be like. I think Chris McCandless clearly got caught up in this way of thinking. He believed that nature and the wilderness would give him a simpler life, that was stripped down and free from society. However nature was ultimately a projection of society. As a result of McCandless romanticising nature in this way he perhaps overlooked the fact that although nature is beautiful it can also be extremely deadly if one is not prepared to properly understand the land as it is and not as it should be.

McCandless was somewhat unprepared and although, as Jon Krakauer (the author of the ‘Into the Wild’ book) suggests, he did ultimately live off the land relatively proficiently in Alaska, he did also die there. He wasn’t well equipped enough to understand the land, he had to borrow some proper boots for the snow he would experience and one of his greatest regrets we can see in his dairy is his failure to properly kill and preserve a moose which clearly highlights his inexperience.

Ultimately while McCandless was able to live off of the land, he did also die as a result of this. Admittedly he was perhaps unaware that the wild potato seeds he was eating were poisonous – it was only discovered as a result of his death from consuming them – his failure to recognise that he couldn’t forge the land that his ancestors perhaps might have done, is suggestive of his according too much belief in the myth of the American frontier. His desire to live completely in the wilderness meant that he didn’t have a map and so he wasn’t aware that he could have found some log cabins or that he perhaps could have attempted to travel further down the river and attempt to cross it. The rising river forced him to stay at the bus in Alaska longer than he had wanted, which arguably forced him to continue to consume the wild potato seeds which prevented proper digestion and ultimately starved him to death.

I do admire Chris McCandless and understand why he perhaps wanted to live off of the land, freely and openly without being concerned about any societal expectations. The idea that he didn’t conform at all to modern society during his time travelling does appeal to me to a large extent and perhaps it is where a lot of my admiration for him comes from. However, his failure to understand that his romanticising of the land was founded essentially on myths and from writers who had never properly experienced true nature is where he falls short. It is clear when you read the text and watch the film that he was an extremely charismatic person and that he touched a lot of people’s lives and I think he still does through his story. That was certainly the case for me, which I also think is another appealing factor about his life. However, the mistakes he made, his misunderstanding of the true meaning of nature and what it is as well as his failure to correspond with his family during this time cause me some confliction. I suppose though, that is what makes him human, it makes the story very touching and revealing. I think that the story of Chris McCandless will always hold a place in my heart, as much as it conflicts me, it also inspires me. I would absolutely recommend reading the book [Krakauer does a much better job than me at explaining Chris’ story and I think he does it in a respectful way] and watching the film.