Into The Wild Questions

Jessica C.

Honors English Purples

Mrs. Zurkowski

February 14, 2011

Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer

Chapter 1

1. 1.      Chris McCandless attended Emory University. After graduating in 1990, he left the money from his well off family on the east coast and set off. Chris had a lot of ideals that weren’t the norm and weren’t accepted. (Author’s Note)
2. 2.      In the Author’s Note,  Jon Krakauer introduced the themes of the bonds of a father an son and a young man’s need for dangerous adventures(Author’s Note).
3. 3.      The quoted material at the beginning of chapter one is a letter that Alex wrote to his friend Wayne. In this letter he tells Wayne, “If this adventure proves fatal and you don’t ever hear from me again I want you to know you’re a great man.” This letter is Alex’s recognition that he may not survive this trip. Contrary to who many critics felt, Alex didn’t think he could survive anything, He knew how this could end.
4. 4.      Alex Supertramp is the alias that Chris McCandless took when he left home. (4)
5. 5.      Jim Gallien is a man that lives in Alaska as an electrician(4). He met McCandless while he was hitchhiking around Fairbanks(4). Gallien then gave him a ride to the Stampede trail and provided him with some supplies(7).
6. 6.      Gallien’s initial assessment of Chris was that he was friendly, but foolish(3 and 5). After the ride, Gallien says, “The more they talked, the less Alex struck Gallien as a nutcase. He was congenial and seemed well educated.”( 5).
7. 7.      Gallien’s first advice to Chris was that he shouldn’t proceed on this journey(5). He also directly told him to wear two pairs of socks in order to keep his feet warm(7).
8. 8.      Gallien offered to McCandless his boots, his lunch, and his phone number in case he ever fell into trouble(7). McCandless then responded with forcing Gallien to take his watch(7).
9. 9.      Gallien thought about alerting the authorities about Alex but thought, “…he’d probably get hungry pretty quick and just walk out to the highway.”(7).
10. 10.  Gallien’s statement that McCandless would get hungry and go out to the highway because that’s what any ‘normal’ person would do. This is ironic because the audience and Gallien know that he is not a normal person. McCandless is hitchhiking across Alaska and has very different ways of thinking from most people. Many people graduate college and go to persue a career. Chris graduated college and gave away his material possessions and life. Many people would act on Gallien’s advice and be scared out their trip. Chris was not only fearless, he was also prepared to answer all of Gallien’s questions without the knowledge that they were going to be asked. Chris is not normal at all and saying that he would do what any normal person would do is ironic. You would think that Gallien would think that this boy would do anything but something normal, but he doesn’t.
1. Chapter 2
11. 11.  Krakauer would include a quote from Jack London for two reasons. For one, on McCandless carved “Jack London is King” at the site of his death(9). Also, many of Jack London’s stories took place in the Yukon and had rough, harsh environments, like the ones that McCandless deals with.
12. 12.  Many readers of Into the Wild may not have been able to go to Alaska, so they are unfamiliar with the environment. By describing the locations, the reader can gather that there are many ridges, wild animals, and a river(10,11).  There also is a mood set by the author. He writes, “About ten miles past the end of the improved road the Stampede Trail crosses the Teklanika River, a fast, icy stream whose waters are opaque with glacial till.”(11). This mood is almost fearful, but reverent to the power of nature.
13. 13.  The most probable cause of Chris McCandless’s death was starvation(14).
1. Chapter 3
14. 14.  Wayne Westerberg was a close friend of Alex’s. Wayne harvested grain for Coors and employed Alex for some jobs(16-17). Wayne was also sent to jail for selling black boxes to provide people with free cable(19). Until that point, Alex lived with Wayne(18). They had a mutual respect for one another and Alex gave Westerberg his prized copy of War and Peace, he also stayed in contact with Wayne (19).
15. 15.  Most of the people that live in Carthage are on the fringe. Wayne sells illegal devices, and he is used to hiring hitchhikers and inadequate workers (18). The people that pass through the town don’t have a stable life and are drifters. Those without a steady home or job are so common, they have a name. Rubber tramps are vagabond with a vehicle and leather tramps are vagabonds with no means of transportation but walking or hitchhiking (17).
16. 16.  Alex felt connected with the people that he lived and worked with. “The living arrangements were loose and convivial. The four or five inhabitants took turns cooking for one another went drinking together, and chased women together, without success.”(18). The roommates interacted and had a good time in each other’s company and had the same easy-going mentality. Alex felt separated from his family because they weren’t involved in his life. They didn’t even know that Chris donated his money to a charity, when they thought he was spending it on law school (20).
17. 17.  Chris left Carthage because there was no work for him to do and Wayne was in Jail (19).
18. 18.  War and Peace was clearly important to Chris because he left it to his friend (19). Chris didn’t give a lot of gifts, but when he did, he made them of some importance (21). At one point, he decided not to give or receive presents because he thinks that people try to buy respect(21). Chris is leaving his friend with something he treasured, not something he simply bought.
19. 19.  Chris had 7 brother and sisters. One sister, Carine, that he was close to and six half siblings(20). Chris was distanced from his parents. He didn’t write them much or even communicate. When he lived in Atlanta, he didn’t have a telephone which showed that he didn’t care whether or not they wanted to contact him and he didn’t tell them when he left on his journey(22).
20. 20.  Chris didn’t care about commercialism because he didn’t care about titles, getting a new car, or a luxurious house(20-22). Chris liked his old van because it still ran and he liked his simplistic apartment in Atlanta with nothing but a mattress and a table. Many people his age want sports cars and mansions. Material things that are nice. Chris wasn’t caught up in anything but the purpose of the object.
21. 21.  When Chris left Atlanta, he made his alias, Alex Supertramp(23).
1. Chapters 4-5
22. 22.  Chris left society so he could find what he wanted in life. He didn’t like commercialism and in order to find peace and reason to some of his questions in life, he set out to see how he fit into life without any material things.
23. 23.  Jan Burres is a 41 year-old rubber tramp that travels with her boyfriend(30). She let Alex camp with her and her boyfriend for about a week. Jan had a son around Alex’s age, so she cared for him like a mother(30). Alex also helped her man her flea market booths. He was held accountable for the books table and he sold a lot of Jack London books for her(44). He would relax with her and tease her(45).
24. 24.  Chris attempted to row his canoes from the Colorado River to the Gulf of California(32). He ran into a lot of trouble along the way. He hit a swamp, dams, canals, and dead ends. When he reached his destination, he continued canoeing until he broke an oar in the ocean and decided to give up the canoe(36).
25. 25.  Chris has a strong voice and writes in third person. “he screams and beats his canoe with oar. The oar breaks. Alex has one spare oar. He calms himself. If loses second oar is dead.”(36). From this excerpt, it is obvious to see that he is level headed and real. He lost his cool for a moment but when he realizes what he’s done and that his future rests in the hand of his temper, he calms down.
26. 26.  Chris says that, “Vegas will not be the end of his story.” (37).He has determined that even though he has been facing malnutrition and has nearly nothing, he will get what he needs and he will be happy. He also says that you must live life to the fullest(37).
27. 27.  Chris led a fairly normal life. He worked at a McDonald’s and lived in a trailer that he didn’t necessarily pay for(39,42).
28. 28.  The Slabs was a gathering of “the retired, the exiled, the destitute, the perpetually unemployed.” in an old navy air-base(43). Here second hand and common flea market type things were sold. The characters here are misfits and people that are trying to escape thing(37). This creates an odd, eccentric crowd with corks and charms that is unique and memorable.
29. 29.  Jan recalls that Chris was many things. He was smart and interested in classical literature and he was good at selling it too(43).  He was social when he was comfortable, and he could play the electric organ and sing very well(45).
30. 30.  Jan thinks that Chris can handle himself in Alaska. She says that he figured everything so far and he could tackle another place as well(46).
1. Chapters 6-7
31. 31.  Ron Franz mailed Jon Krakauer a pen requesting the magazine regarding Chris McCandless’s death(48). Franz had lost his family and then discovered a habit of taking in troubled kids(50). Franz picked up Alex hitchhiking and started taking care of him as much as Alex would allow him. Krakauer suggests that Franz took the relationship much more seriously than Chris did. He says that Chris, ‘flitted out of their lives before anything was expected of him.’(55). Chris walked away from their relationship and occasionally wrote Franz and asked for rides. When Franz heard that Chris was dead, he became an atheist after being a strong Christain(60).
32. 32.  Anza-Borrego is a Desert State Park in California(48).
33. 33.  Ron Franz lost his wife and only son in a car accident while he had been serving overseas. His son was about to graduate medical school(50).
34. 34.  Franz felt very strongly about Chris. Krakauer says “the affection he[Franz] felt was genuine, intense, and unalloyed.”(55). He asked Alex to be his adopted grandson in order to carry on his generation(55).
35. 35.  Franz taught Chris how to work with leather(51).
36. 36.  After telling of Chris and Franz’s separation, Krakauer explains that Alex was afraid of relationships that required anything expected of his. “—relieved that he had again evaded the impending threat of human intimacy, of friendship, and all the messy emotional baggage that comes with it.”(55). He is implying that Chris fears demanding relationships that cause him to stay with that person, glued to them, afraid to leave them.
37. 37.  Chris sent Franz a letter from Carthage saying that Franz needed to leave the comfort and security of his life. Chris insisted this by saying that every day he returned to this security looking for happiness but he still felt the same way every day(56-57). Franz thought highly enough of Chris that he took his advice. He moved out of his apartment, stored his material things, and moved out into bajada with a Duravan(58).
38. 38.  Franz learned of Chris’s death from a Mississippi and Native American Hitchhiker that he had given a ride to(60).  Franz took this news hard. He returned to drinking and became an atheist(60).
39. 39.  At the beginning of chapter seven Westerberg was annoyed because he was short a few hands in the shop. They had been expecting Alex back to help out but he didn’t come because he had died(62).
40. 40.  The author thinks that Chris’s father was a control freak and Alex was very independent(64). Carine and Alex were very close. Alex confided in her and told her of his plans to elude his parents(64).
1. Chapters 8-9
41. 41.  Gene Rossellini was searching for answers just as Alex was. Gene didn’t really care about discovering nature. He had a desire to answer his question and he went to find the answer. Could people survive without modern technology(74)? Alex seeks answers to philosophy related questions. There was a connection between their need for answers.
42. 42.  John Waterman was included in the story because he was similar to Alex. He had issues with his family, he enjoyed playing music, he was ambitious, and he held himself to high standards(76-79). Waterman was ambitious because when he tried to climb a mountain and failed 3 times. Every time he failed, he made it harder for himself but he tried again. Both men were extremests and held themselves to a high moral standard. Krakauer was trying to show that Alex was just short of Waterman’s mark of insanity.
43. 43.  McCunn, like Chris, was a dreamer. He wanted to go out into the wild and he thought he could handle himself. The little details were their downfalls. McCunn was asking around about the supplies he needed but when all he had to do was arrange a date to be picked up, he forgot and died(83). Chris thought he was prepared with the materials he had. He went to several stores and worked many jobs to pay for his supplies. He could have survived if he hadn’t eaten a certain berry.
44. 44.  Everett Ruess was a lot like Chris in his love for nature. Everett attended college an left because he was unsatisfied, just like Chris(90). He then set out for adventures across Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico(90). He wrote home to his family and friends about his love for nature and how he didn’t feel like anyone could connect with him on that matter(91).  He took several different names and so did Chris.
45. 45.  Ken Sleigh thought that the boys were similar because they both liked to be alone but they also needed to have friends and companionship(96).

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