Chris McCandless

Chris McCandless is adventurous and brave; Chris is a young individual who wants to prove happiness without “things”. Chris has a very self-motivated personality with a strong attitude with great determination. He believes that everyone has a purpose in life and it’s up to you to prove it. Chris’s adventure proves that he is finally free. He has needed to escape his challenges and obstacles at home by creating new goals for himself without another person breathing down his back and telling him what he needs to do with his life. In Chris’s letter to Wayne he says, “Things that escape most people. As for me, I’ve decided that I’m going to live this life for some time to come. The freedom and simple beauty of it is just too good to pass up.” (33). This quote illustrates the simplicity that Chris desires for his own life and it shows what he’s looking for. I see Chris as a pilgrim like Krakauer claims, because he is person starting over in a new world. By definition, a pilgrim is someone who journeys, a long distance, to some sacred place as an act of religious devotion. Some may say with that definition, one must be religious, and Chris does relate by that sort because when Chris writes to Ron, he says, “I fear you will follow this same inclination in the future and thus fail to discover all the wonderful things that God has placed around us to discover.” (57). With this implication of God, Chris is stating that God has placed us here with a motive, and to discover what He has created, which is exactly what Chris is trying to pursue in life.