There are two sides to every story. Jon Krakauer’s book, Into the Wild, which chronicles the life of amateur survivalist Chris McCandless, largely embodies this claim. It seems the people who ever heard Chris’s story were split into two sects: on one side, there are those who claim McCandless was a misunderstood anti-hero, who showed some twisted nobility through his actions. On the other side, there are those who simply deem McCandless, in Krakauer’s own words, “a narcissist who perished out of arrogance and stupidity” (4). While Krakauer falls into the former camp -- mainly due to his own life’s similarities to Chris’s -- it really only takes a moment’s glance at McCandless’s life to see that the latter camp is more correct: while Chris did show some semblance of courage and nobility on his travels, he was, first and foremost, a stubborn, arrogant misanthrope, and that is the reason why he never walked out of Alaska in August of 1992. From Chris McCandless’s early years of childhood, he showed stubbornness in his everyday life. As Chris’s father Walt ruminates, “Chris had so much natural talent, . . . but if you tried to coach him, to polish his skill, to bring out that final ten percent, a wall went up” …show more content…
Had he stopped for mere seconds to contemplate how arrogant he was acting by pushing people away so strongly, he might have realized his mistakes and applied his strong body and brilliant mind toward a greater purpose. Instead, however, Chris, like many young adults, was so blinded by his hubris that he failed to show proper respect for others, for nature, and for himself. The fact of the matter is that Chris was a stubborn, immature person whose egotistical actions resulted in a tragic end just miles from the civilization he was so badly trying to run