Comment analysis and interpretation methods

¶ … Supertramp' is McCandless' literary alter ego. In his writings, McCandless portrays himself as a kind of spiritual pilgrim in the last, pure place on earth -- the Great White North. Writing under a different name allows McCandless to distance himself from the very real risk he is taking, and also the callousness he shows towards those who try to help him on his journey. He refuses all aid because he sees himself as a lonely, literary character on a spiritual voyage, unencumbered by friends and family.

To give dignity to what could easily be viewed as a pointless death, Krakauer stresses McCandless' fascination with authors like Tolstoy, Thoreau, and the Gospels. These authors stress a life of simplicity and oneness with nature. Krakauer is desperate that McCandless' death 'means something.' Krakauer, in a rebuttal to accusations that McCandless' actions were selfish, includes a Tolstoy quote the young man underlined proclaiming the value of selflessness. He records McCandless' laborious attempts to survive by hunting and gathering as evidence that the wilderness journey was not suicidal.

Question 3

Krakauer sees McCandless as idealistic in his attempt to live off of the land, rather than foolhardy, although young people often do foolish things. Young people are so focused on finding themselves they often lack a sense of responsibility, even to the people who care about them like their parents. McCandless also lacked a sense of the value of things like money, education, and making a personal investment in society. He had passionate longing to free himself from society, but without a clear idea of how to achieve that goal in a meaningful and concrete fashion.

Question 4

After a certain point, McCandless begins to doubt the righteousness of his cause. However, he cannot abandon it, given the tremendous personal and emotional investment he has made in separating himself from civilization. Even Tim O'Brien's soldiers who are thrust into their circumstances have trouble distancing themselves from the code of violence they have learned, because they have made such a personal investment in the military.

Question 5

Krakauer idealizes McCandless' reckless behavior. However, McCandless' behavior was so foolhardy, it lacks the nobility the author attempts to ascribe to it. As Krakauer admits, had McCandless had proper equipment, including a map, it is unlikely that he would have been trapped in the area and starved to death. McCandless lacked basic survival skills, such as knowing how to preserve meat and to swim. Going into the wild without proper preparation was not a test of his strength, but suicidal and egotistical, and based more upon his self-conception of himself as a pure 'seeker' rather than upon the realities of the true wilderness.

There is nothing logical in the extreme to which McCandless took risk-taking, given that it did not show respect for the environment -- McCandless refused to bow to people's expertise who knew the land, and arrogantly relied instead upon his own belief system. This male arrogance can be seen in Susan Faludi's essay on the Citadel, a military academy that determinedly created an atmosphere inhospitable to women, even when forced to integrate. The young men, insecure in their identities, cling to the image of the military school as a 'pure' place that cannot be sullied by outside forces, just as McCandless saw any basic attempts to protect his vulnerable self against the elements as wrong.

Question 6

Stout's analysis of the inefficient reactions of the brain because of past trauma are useful in understanding McCandless' actions -- McCandless initially expected survival to be easy because he had survived in the wilderness before under very different circumstances. Trauma can cause people to detach from reality, and McCandless' initial difficulties, which were likely traumatic for him, produced a behavior of learned helplessness, which eventually left him starving to death relatively near help.