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  2. Overview. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, published in 1996, is a nonfiction book that tells the captivating and tragic story of Christopher McCandless. The narrative traces McCandless’s journey from his comfortable middle-class life to his ultimate adventure in the stark Alaskan wilderness.

    • Chapter 1
    • Chapter 2
    • Chapter 3
    • Chapter 4
    • Chapter 5
    • Chapter 6
    • Chapter 7
    • Chapter 8
    • Chapter 9
    • Chapter 10

    A man named Jim Gallien picks up a young hitchhiker calling himself “Alex” who says he plans to stay in Alaska’s Denali National Park. Because he can see that Alex is unprepared for such an experience, Gallien is concerned, but he assumes Alex will give up as soon as he faces hardships.

    A group of hunters and hikers find an abandoned bus that has served as a shelter for people. There is a note stating that the occupant, Christopher J. McCandless, is sick and needs help. Inside the bus, they find a dead body that is later determined to be a human who died of starvation. Read a full Summary & Analysis of Chapters 1 & 2

    In an interview with Jon Krakauer, Wayne Westerberg, who employed McCandless for a while, describes him as having been handsome and hardworking. McCandless was from an upper middle-class family in Virginia, but he eschewed traditional values and measures of success. He graduated from college, but refused his parents’ offer to fund law school, telli...

    Krakauer describes what he learned by tracing McCandless’s activities after his disappearance, which consisted mostly of hiking and wandering alone in national parks while occasionally doing farm work. After an unsuccessful foray into Mexico, McCandless lived on the streets in Las Vegas.

    Krakauer is unable to find much about McCandless’s time in Las Vegas, but after that he was homeless in Arizona until an old man named Charlie took him in. McCandless actively engaged with others in an itinerant community called Slabs, where he lived with Jan Burres and her boyfriend. Read a full Summary & Analysis of Chapters 4 & 5

    After Krakauer publishes a story he wrote about McCandless, he meets with a recovering alcoholic and veteran who looked after McCandless for a while and considered him not just a friend, but like family. The man, Ronald A. Franz, urged McCandless to find a job and settle, which McCandless countered by urging Franz to become less sedentary and more ...

    Krakauer meets with Westerberg and a group of people who interacted with and grew fond of McCandless before he left on his fatal trip to Alaska. Their stories about his behavior along with speculation about McCandless’s distrust of his parents and his apparent celibacy feed Krakauer’s belief that McCandless sought the solitude of nature because his...

    Krakauer summarizes some letters about McCandless that were written by experienced campers and Alaskans in response to his article about him. Krakauer describes three men who died under circumstances not dissimilar from McCandless’s and draws parallels and contrasts with each of them before concluding that a young man named Everett Ruess is a bette...

    Everett Ruess was born to a middle-class family, and like McCandless, removed himself from society in favor of a solitary life in the wilderness. Also, like McCandless, Ruess showed little concern for personal safety and disappeared, leaving his worried family to search for him, although in Reuss’s case, they never found his body. Read a full Summa...

    Through the help of Gallien and Westerberg, McCandless is finally identified as the man that the hunters and hikers found dead in the abandoned bus at Denali. His half-brother goes to Alaska to identify him.

  3. A summary of Chapters 1 & 2 in Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild. Learn exactly what happened in this chapter, scene, or section of Into the Wild and what it means. Perfect for acing essays, tests, and quizzes, as well as for writing lesson plans.

  4. The best study guide to Into the Wild on the planet, from the creators of SparkNotes. Get the summaries, analysis, and quotes you need.

  5. Questions & Answers. What does McCandless bring with him into the wild? McCandless travels light into the wilderness. He takes a backpack which contains rice, books, a rifle, and some other basic supplies. Jim Gallien, the man who drives McCandless to the trailhead, estimates McCandless’s bag could not weigh more than thirty pounds.

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