Into the Wild Essay

Submitted By harrison34
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The Long Walk into the Wild I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. Henry David Thoreau, from Walden.

The biography Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, is the story of Chris McCandless’s journey into the wild where he looks for true happiness. Chris’s life was based on the stories and ideas of many authors including Henry David Thoreau. Through the thoughts and ideas of Thoreau, Chris tried to, and did, live by transcendentalist ideas of Thoreau and broke down his life to the simplest terms and lived by a strict moral code that helped him find out the true meaning of life. In Walden, Thoreau describes what he believes is the only way to truly live life, and how achieve its highest standards. When Thoreau said he wants to see “only the essential facts of life,” he realized that he did not live his life to its maximum potential. He believes that he had not lived his life to its greatest extent because he was living with the distractions of life. Thoreau thought that if a person could live off the minimums of life and is able to “reduce it to its lowest terms,” then that person will be able to “suck out all the marrow of life.” Reducing life to its lowest terms will allow someone to see life in a beautiful naked state with no distractions. Thoreau thinks that if anyone can live with a strict moral code, and can live deliberately off the essentials of life, that they will be able to learn what life has to teach. Only then will someone be able to find out the true meaning of life, and be able to live it to the fullest.

In Chris McCandless’s adventure into the wild, he becomes obsessed with the ideas of Thoreau. Chris lived in the wild to be able to escape all of the false objects in his life, and to see only the simple and essentials facts of life. During Chris’s
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