Somewhere in everyone's life, there comes a time when you start making decisions for yourself. This point in someone's life varies, but no matter what time it arrives in your life, there is always this knowledge that you have to become independent. Chris McCandless was someone who realized this, but unlike most people, he took this involvement to the extreme and it became something he would never come home from. In college McCandless was mostly separated from everyone. He did not have many friends and was known by many as a strange person. He too was raised by a broken home. His father had a son besides him in a previous relationship. In Chris' life, he was never truly shown how to be independent. This is what drove him to take a trip to Alaska to survive on his own. When it comes to how Krakauer felt about McCandless, he had a lot of different feelings. He states: "Though he was reckless, inexperienced in the ways of the outback, and reckless to the point of madness, he was not incompetent: if he had been he would not have lasted 113 days. And he was not a madman, he was not a sociopath, he was not an outcast, McCandless was something else – although it is difficult to say exactly what a pilgrim is” (Page 90). Krakauer had a very similar involvement and can tell us about McCandless and his hunger for adventure. There are many other quotes this shows how Krakauer feels, but another thing that struck me was: “it would be easy to stereotype Christopher McCandless. as a... middle-of-the-road character... he may have been naive, but he was not incompetent. In conclusion, based on the information collected by Krakauer, he believes that McCandless was a unique and determined individual. I agree with this statement 100%. Not many people attempt the wild and reckless journey that McCandless took. When he took this risk it cost him his life. I believe Christopher McCandless wouldn't have changed for anyone. I think Krakauer understood McCandless and his difficult temperament. “…But Christopher Johnson McCandless came into the world with unusual gifts and a will that was difficult to deviate from his trajectory” (Page 110). This final quote is what McCandless explains in one short sentence. He was a human being who was determined to do something and went after what he wanted. Work Cited Krakauer, Jon. In the wild nature. New York: Anchor, 1997. Print.