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Ava Howgate

Mr.Smith

H 11 ELA

12/14/23

Non-linear Nattrives with Christopher McCandless

“At long last he was unencumbered, emancipated from the stifling world of his parents

and peers, a world of abstraction and security and material excess, a world in which he felt

grievously cut off from the raw throb of existence.” (Krakauer). In the book “Into the Wild”, by

Jon Krakauer. Chris McCandless is represented in the No-linear native which is a narrative

referring to a storytelling tactic where the sequences of events in the story do not follow the

chronological order. In Into the Wild Chis's childhood life is introduced later on in the book

providing people's opinions on the book to drastic change once readers read about past events in

his life. Overall, due to the structure elements of the book “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer

collaborate to present a versatile portrayal of Chris McCandless a young man seeking adventure

and exploration in Alaska while leaving his whole life behind, making readers comprehend his

adventures and leading the readers to understand the reasons behind his journey and his

discussions. Non-linear narrative causes an alteration in readers' understanding of the change

from Critiquing Chris McCandless's decisions and thoughts throughout his wreckless journey to

sympathetic when reading McCandless's younger life and the struggles and trauma he went

through.

While Reading about Chris McCandless’s childhood in the book “Into The Wild” and the

way Jon Krakauer structured and wrote the book helped me understand and reconcile with why

he ran away from his life and loved ones with no contact, while not feeling the need to reach out
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to them. In early chapters, Krakauer describes how little his family meant to him during his

journey, as Krakauer elaborates on how "McCandless was thrilled to be on his way north, and he

was relieved as well—relieved that he had again evaded the impending threat of human intimacy,

of friendship, and all the messy emotional baggage that comes with it. He had fled the

claustrophobic confines of his family. He'd successfully kept them at arm's length, or, more

accurately, at a geographic remove." (Krakauer). This quote provides us with a pessimistic view

of Chris McCandless and how he didn't feel an attachment to his family in his young adult life

due to the experiences he had as a child, his family was intensely looking and worrying about

Chris daily, which caused them to change their whole lives and personalities and fall into a deep

depression. Chris’s family barely crossed his mind and kept going with excitement due to the

lack of importance Chris felt towards his family. Later on in the book Krakauer introduces

Chris’s childhood life and the struggles he dealt with, his parents had high expectations of him

while they were living their own shady life that Chris was aware of as a young child which

caused him to lose trust in everyone but himself and only wants to rely on himself. Leading him

to not feel resentful about leaving his family with no goodbye or explanation. Krakauer explains

McCandless’s life by highlighting how "It was a stressful existence. Both Walt and Billie are

tightly wound, emotional, loath to give ground. Now and then the tensions erupted in verbal

sparring. In moments of anger, one or the other often threatened divorce. The rancor was more

smoke than fire, says Carine, but “I think it was one of the reasons Chris and I were so close. We

learned to count on each other when Mom and Dad weren't getting along” (Krakauer). The

sympathy readers will take in after learning how McCandless didn't have a good childhood with

his parents always fighting and having the feelings of not having any adult figure in his life that

was there for him, Chris already was used to being on his own and felt like he didn't owe his
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family an explanation to his journey because he knew they wouldn't support it, Chris never had

structured support so this situation would be no different. The structure that Krakauer used to

represent Chris McCandlesses's life by introducing his adult life and non-relatable actions and

decisions made in his adult life before introducing his childhood and the trauma he faced within

his family life that would have given the readers a sense of sympathy and understanding on why

he left his life with no explanation towards his family and the decisions he made on the way.

Learning about Chris McCandless's life as a young kid assisted me with more

understanding of why he ignored most sources of help and never tended to accept individuals'

recommendations. While Chris was pursuing his journey many people made an impact on his

life, from love interests to grandfather-like figures. But it always seemed he wouldn't let them in

and never allowed any help and recommendations. Chris never could let people in and tended to

not trust anyone besides himself. As Krakauer represented this by saying “I'm going to

paraphrase Thoreau here... rather than love, than money, than faith, than fame, than fairness...

give me truth. ” (Krakauer). Many may feel that McCandless follows Thoreaues's idea just to

copy his lifestyle but in reality, Trauma caused Chris McCandless to follow in similar footsteps

as Thoreau, whose philosophy of living alone, and a simple life that sought a deep connection

with nature inspired McCandless to embark on his own adventure into the wild. Both grew away

from trusting anyone besides themself, so when help and true people came along they would shut

them out, many felt if Chris had listened to people along the way of his journey he would have

been alive now, embracing a view of selfishness of McCandless. After reading about the many

lies that resurfaced in Chris’s summer of senior year I recognized that Chris’s trust issues held a

lot of meaning and were easily understood once I learned what lies he’s been told and how it

would be hard to trust after dealing with what he dealt with. McCandless learned a lot about
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certain aspects of his father Walters's life. There were speculations about Walt McCandless’s

previous life and family, McCandless felt his father had been lying to him and lived a double life.

He learned about his affair and the abandonment of his past family before starting a new life with

McCandless’s mother. (Krakauer). Readers will show sympathy for McCandless and understand

how these discoveries contributed to the factor of McCandless’s disillusionment with his family

and influenced him to detach himself from them. He lost trust in everyone and only trusted

himself, all he wanted was the truth but he believed no one told the truth. Krakauer used the

structure of non-linear to create a sense of sympathy later on in the book and allowed readers to

understand why McCandless had such strong trust issues.

The design components of “ Into The Wild” proceed to introduce a contrasable view of

McCandless’s life, this modifies how the readers might interpret the storyline. Structural

elements can alter the readers opinions and takeaways from the book, Krakaure displays this is

many ways including Epigraphs, Non-linear narrative and intertextuality.

Works Cited

Krakauer, Jon. Into the Wild. New York :Anchor Books, 1997.

Skill N Foundational Proficient Advanced

Y

Thesis Establishes Specific mention Effectively

a basic of structural makes a claim
claim elements (and) incorporating a
Includes some complex idea;
aspect of author’s contrast, cause
purpose/ readers and effect, etc.
interpretation
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Claims Makes a Previous (and) Previous (and)

statement Somewhat Considers the
that considers the thesis of the
requires thesis paper
evidence to Effective use of
support transition
words/phrases

Evidence Some Includes multiple Includes a

evidence pieces of variety of
relates to evidence/ specific,
the thesis examples that meaningful, and
clearly relate to well-chosen
the thesis and evidence that
individual claims relates to the
Includes multiple thesis
pieces of
evidence in each
body paragraph

Analysis Sometimes Accurately Explains

identifies identifies and well-selected
structures conveys points of
Somewhat structures comparison
explains Explains how among
how evidence evidence and
evidence supports topic their connection
supports sentence of to the thesis
topic individual
sentence paragraphs
and thesis Explains how
evidence
supports the
thesis of the
essay

MLA Format Some Heading is No errors in

elements correctly MLA format
missing or formatted
some errors Pages are
in MLA numbered
format Most in-text
citations are
correctly
formatted
Works Cited:
each source entry
is in correct MLA
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format

Conventions Shows Most quotes are All quotes are

evidence of correctly correctly
basic integrated integrated
proofreadin Follows essay Shows evidence
g organization of careful
Shows evidence proofreading
of proofreading

Fluency Simple use Demonstrates Strong use of of

of use of grade level vocabulary,
vocabulary vocabulary, diction,
Simple diction, sentence sentence
sentence structures structures
structures Accurate use of
unit specific
vocabulary
(non-linear,
epigraph)