Into the Wild Group

Question:

jennnaa17
jennnaa17
Student
High School - 10th Grade

In Into the Wild, what was Chris McCandless's biggest challenge?

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Posted by jennnaa17 on Wednesday September 9, 2009 at 4:26 PM and tagged with challenges, chris, into the wild, literature.

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  1. mstultz72 Teacher
    High School - 12th Grade

    eNotes Editor

    Chris McCandless faced an identity crisis in which he failed to balance realistic and romantic views of himself.

    Ultimately, he convinced himself that his book-hero persona Alexander Supertramp could survive the Alaskan outback with a small caliber rifle and a ten pound bag of rice.  This act of hubris was a result of mistaking the realism of Jack London and Leo Tolstoy as Romantic cult pulp.  Rather than confronting his father's past and his own role in the materialistic American culture at large, McCandless isolated himself in nature to spite mankind.  Ironically, he failed to realize how profoundly he impacted even the unlikeliest of strangers (in Ron Franz).  His epiphany of "happiness is only real when shared" was realized in the throes of starvation.

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    Posted by mstultz72 on Wednesday September 9, 2009 at 6:39 PM