Stepping+Into+the+Wild

__ Stepping Into the Wild __ In the novel, //A Hero’s Journey,// Joseph Campbell, an American mythologist, writer, and lecturer, states that “every decision made by a young person is life decisive. What seems to be a small problem is really a large one. So everything that is done early in life is functionally related to a life trajectory” (Campbell). In mythic criticism, the critic sees mythic archetypes and imagery connecting and contrasting it with other similar works. Certain patterns emerge, such as a traditional hero on a journey towards self actualization. //Into the Wild// by Jon Krakauer portrays this hero’s journey. The protagonist of the novel, Chris McCandless, hitchhikes to Alaska and walks alone into the wilderness, north of Mt. McKinley. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. He thought that the reality of the modern world was corrupt and uncompassionate, so he went on this journey in order to find a life of solitude and innocence that could only be expressed through his encounters with the wild. During this ambitious journey to find the true meaning of life, Chris McCandless exhibits a pattern like the type explained above. In Jon Krakauer’s //Into the Wild//, Chris McCandless follows this mythic pattern, seeking to be the traditional hero who spurns civilization, yet he discovers that modern heroes cannot escape their reality.

Chris’s personality exhibits the real foundation of the pattern of his heroic journey. The last thoughts of Chris McCandless were, “I have had a happy life and thank the Lord. Goodbye and may God bless you all!” (Krakauer 199). This demonstrates how Chris had a kind and compassionate heart. His considerate soul pierced the hearts of many people along his journey, but whenever the relationships were ready to take a step further, he fled from them, saying that “the very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun” (57). Chris rejects established norms of the modern world and sees himself as the center of his own existence, so he changes his name to Alex Supertramp along his journey, in order to truly fit the role of the romantic hero. Alex tried to escape from reality and relationships because he wanted to experience new elements of life but always got drawn back to people because what he stood for was very likable by other people. Alex’s personality lured many people into his life, yet he always left because he thought that true joy was to experience new things and move away from the social norms of relationships and their grounding reality. His love and compassion that ultimately creates relationships always keeps him from completing his transformation of becoming a traditional romantic hero. This is in direct relation with the mythic pattern between the traditional romantic hero and the “modern” hero.

The relationships that Chris McCandless created during his journeys became an essential role in the crafting of the pattern that he experienced along his heroic journey. Franz, one of the people that Chris befriended along his travels, told Krakauer, “When I learned what happened [the death of Chris McCandless], I renounced to the board. I decided I couldn’t believe in a god who would let something that terrible happen to a boy like Alex” (60). Franz exemplified all of the emotional relationships that Alex had created with the many different people he met along his journey. The fact that Franz gave up all of his beliefs and religion after Alex’s death illustrates the poignant ties that Alex had created with the people he met. But as said above, just as the relationship was going to move a step closer, he always left, referring to the same mentality of avoiding reality and having an ever changing horizon. It isn’t until the last of his days when he says, “Disaster… Rained in. River look impossible. Lonely, scared”, that he realizes that this pattern is corrupt and will lead to his death (170). He finally grasps the idea and experiences loneliness for the first time because this is the first time that civilization has been so far away from him. His goal of becoming a tragic hero is broken because he desires the comfort of modern civilization, rather than his own principles of life. He wants and longs for someone to save him, but he went too far out of reality. This cycle of relationships and loneliness is foundational to the novel and at the end when he truly experiences loneliness, he wants to go back to the “relationship” side of the cycle, back to the reality spectrum of the mythic pattern, but is too late because he is too far into the isolated, wild, and adventurous side.

The bus that Chris finds while in the wild is a vital piece of the pattern that Chris experiences along his journey. Krakauer respectfully says, “Ironically, the wilderness surrounding the bus- the patch of overgrown country where McCandless was determined ‘to become lost in the wild’- scarcely qualifies as wilderness by Alaska standards” (165). The bus that Chris took shelter in was the comfort that could only be provided by his standards of reality. This bus is literally a piece of reality, and Chris does not even realize it. Chris constantly tries to move away from the bus and heads toward the Bering Strait, but makes excuses to himself that the weather is too bad for him to move on. Thus he stays back at the bus where it is safer; “after weighing his options, therefore, he settled on the most prudent course. He turned around and began walking to the west, back toward the bus, back into the fickle of the brush” (171). Chris always went through a cycle of trying to go further into the wild, but always ended up going back to the bus which in mythic terms is the reality side of the pattern. This leads him away from becoming a true romantic hero.

Chris’s personality, the relationships that he made during his journey, and the bus where he spent the rest of his life were gears to the mechanism of the heroic pattern of trying to fulfill a life purpose of going and living off the wild. Nonetheless, he always goes back to the comfort of reality. He thought that there was only a bad side to reality without even noticing the camaraderie that he made with many thoughtful and loving people due to what reality has to bring. He thought that reality was about the horrors and trepidations that have consumed a once healthy society, but he never noticed that there is a different side to reality. It is about friendship, free will, and compassion. The true meaning of joyfulness is to experience new things like going into the wild, but to experience them with another human being. This is the most fulfilling aspect of life because a person is impacting not only his/her life, but also the life of another. When a person joins the amorous aspects of reality, and then mixes it into commencing and enveloping the freedom that nature has to offer, only then will he/she truly have a life of pleasure and contentment.

__ Work Cited __ Krakauer, Jon. //Into the Wild//. New York: Anchor Books, 1996.

//The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life and Work//. Google Books. November 10, 2009. http://books.google.com/books.