Why Do People Like Chris Mccandless Unprepared?

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What do people like Chris McCandless truly gain out of dropping everything to fall off the grid and disappear into the wilderness unprepared? Every year someone needs rescued from the wild seeing that they were unprepared for the elements. These people are stubborn in thinking they will be able to survive comfortably with their lack of experience comparable to Chris. And there has always been people parallel to Chris. Everett Ruess, Carl McCunn, John Waterman, Gene Rosellini, are just to name a few men who, like Chris, attempted to live in the wilderness and failed miserably. But there are others who have done it successfully, like the modern forest dweller in the Olympic Peninsula and TV personality Mick Dodge. Men and women with knowledge and experience are able to survive the elements, Chris lacked in both areas which is what led to his demise. Despite his headstrong attitude and recklessness, he left people with both positive and negative impressions. As Krakauer writes in Into the Wild, Jim Gallien was at first opposed to what Chris was doing. Stating that “Gallien wondered whether he’d picked up one of those crackpots from the lower forty-eight who come north to live out ill-considered Jack London fantasies” (Krakauer 4). Jim Gallien was at ease for a little bit after learning Chris …show more content…
One story in specific can be easily related to Chris. To Build a Fire is about a stubborn man analogous to Chris, who travels the Yukon Trail unprepared in the winter. One older and experienced man warned him of the dangers of traveling alone on the Yukon. But the unnamed man brushed off the advice at first, thinking “those old-timers were rather womanish, some of them, he thought” (London 228-229). Those old-timers warned the man of the Alaskan dangers, just like Chris was warned and criticized for his stubborn actions. Actions that led to his death like the unnamed man’s in To Build a