Characterization Notes on Christopher McCandless

Characterization Notes on Christopher McCandless

(a.k.a. Alex Supertramp)

Assignment Directions:  As you read Into the Wild, take notes on direct and indirect characterization traits about Christopher McCandless.  For each chapter, pick out 2-3 descriptions about Chris that really stand out to you.  This could be direct descriptions about what Christopher looks like to indirect descriptions about how Chris acts, what he says, how others view him, how he treats others, and anything about Chris that helps you form an opinion about him by the end of the novel.  Keep in mind that by the end of the book, you will write an essay that gives your opinion on either side of the following argument presented in the “Author’s Note”:

            “Some readers admired the boy immensely for his courage and noble ideals; others fulminated that he was a reckless idiot, a wacko, a narcissist who perished out of arrogance and stupidity – and was undeserving of the considerable media attention he received.”

Fill out the chart as you read and post on your blog when the chart is completed. Mrs. Z. will check your chart on your laptop periodically to see that you are adding notes and keeping up with the character chart as we read.

Direct and Indirect Characterization Notes on Christopher McCandless

(Alex Supertramp)

Chapter and page #	Description/quote from novel		What impression you get about Chris with this character trait or description?
Chapter 1, page 4	“Five feet seven or eight with a wiry build, he claimed to be 24 years old and said he was from South Dakota.  He explained that he wanted a ride as far as the edge of Denali National Park, where he intended to walk deep into the bush and ‘live off the land for a few month.’” “He had an answer for everything I threw at him.”		Chris is not physically fit for walking into such a dangerous environment.  He seems a little crazy. Chris is stubborn about his point of view. Even when he thinks he is prepared for something he might not be, but won’t hear otherwise.
Chapter 2	“S.O.S. I need your help. I an injured, near death, and too weak to hike out of here. I am all alone, this is no joke. In the name of God, please help me. I am out collecting berries close by and shall return this evening. Thank you, Chris McCandless. August?” “…that recorded the young man’s final weeks in 113 terse, enigmatic entries.”		This note shows that Chris is all high-up and “I’m so right about everything” until he gets into trouble. Then he goes back to his old name and starts begging for help. Even when Chis is dying he writes 113 entries in just a few weeks. That’s more than two entries a day! He is very meticulous about his writing and he wants everyone to know what he thinks about what is happening to him.
Chapter 3	When Chris works for Westerburg, he is very diligent in his work and tries hard despite how hard the job is. “He read a lot. Used a lot of big words.”		Chris is a hardworking, responsible person. Even as master of his own destiny he still respects others. He can keep a head on his shoulders, even in situations like being the lone supertramp. Chris dislike education, but he keeps it with him, even when he abandons his life as a college graduate. He also keeps feeding his brain wit literature even though he demotes the importance of learning.
Chapter 4	“…he came across a sign warning that he was trespassing on the U.S. Army’s highly restrictive Yuma Proving Ground. McCandless was deterred not in the least.” “On January 16, McCandless left the stubby metal boat on a hummock of dune grass southeast of El Golfo de Santa Clara and started walking north up the deserted beach.”		Likes his country, or at least the land it is made up of; but he hates the government. He doesn’t care about laws or officials. His seems to be rather naive about the fact that without the government there would be no America. Chris might be a little more impressionable by fear then he seems. He puts on Bravado when he is comfortable, but after an incident like he was in in the canoe he quickly abandons the canoe for good.
Chapter 5	“…they started asking him if he needed soap or anything. That made him mad- you could tell. But he never showed it outright. About three weeks later he just walked out the door and quit.” “McCandless was epically attentive to Burres, flirting and clowning with her at every opportunity. ‘he liked to tease me and torment me,’ she recalls. ‘I’d go out back to hang clothes on the line behind the trailer and he would, and he’d attach clothespins all over me. He was playful, like a kid.”		Chris is the kind of person who gets angry about something, and it just festers in them for a long time. They don’t really let anyone know that they’re mad until one day they just burst an it all comes out, usually in the form of them just leaving. Even though McCandless was a road hardened, college graduate intellectual with strong opinions and a very loner-like, independent outlook on life, he still acted playful sometimes. He still liked to play and mess around when he was in a good mood. He had a young hart.
Chapter 6	“God he was a smart kid,’ the old man rasps in a barely audible voice. He directs his gaze at a patch of sand between his feet as he makes this declaration; then stops talking.” “I hope that the next time I see you, you will be a new man with a vast array of new adventures and experiences behind you. Don’t hesitate or allow yourself to make excuses. Just get out and do it. Just get out and do it. You will be very, very glad that you did.”		McCandless was smart. He had a college education, and a very good one at that. He worked hard in school and learned a lot. Even though the things he did seemed ignorant, in truth they were often anything but that. At first, when everyone meets Alex, they think that they are the ones helping him. That his is tired, and broken, and hungry. They help him, but in the end it seems that he is more of a help to them then they are to him. During his journey he is able to improve the lives of many people that he meets along the way.
Chapter 7	“If  Alex were here right  now I’d be tempted to chew him out real good: ‘what the hell were you thinking? Not talking to your family all that time, treating them like dirt!” “Nor was McCandless endowed with a surfeit of common sense. Many who knew him have commented, unbidden, that he seemed to have great difficulty seeing the trees, as they were, for the forest.”		Westerburg has a very valid point: Chris alienated his family and caused them harm that will haunt them for the rest of their life because of principles. He never saw or talked to them again after his graduation, maybe he regretted it as he slowly perished painfully and alone in a rusty school bus in the middle of nowhere. Chris may have been smart and street wise, but he doesn’t naturally have the gift of commonsense. It is sometimes hard for him to put two and two together or understand the sequence of events or cause and effect scenarios in life.
Chapter 8		“His ignorance, which could have been cured by a USGS quadrant and a boy scout manual is what killed him.” “Although he was rash, untutored in the ways of the backcountry, and incautious to the point of foolhardiness, he wasn’t incompetent- he wouldn’t have lasted 113 days if he were.		While McCandless may not have been totally ignorant, it can’t be overlooked that what he did in Alaska wasn’t quite as well thought out as it could have been. If he had been more prepared he might have gotten out with his life. When it came to survival with almost nothing, McCandless knew his stuff. He’d been in the desert, the ocean, the plains, and survived with little more than rice and instinct.
Chapter 9		“I’ve decided that I’m going to live off the land for some time to come. The freedom and simple beauty of it is just too good to pass up.” “We like companionship, but we can’t stand to be around people for very long. So we get ourselves lost, come back for a while, then get the hell out again.		When Chris gets an idea, it seems that he overlooks some of the gory details, so to say, and sees something nearly impossible as simply beautiful. Chris did enjoy other people; he just only needed them in limited quantities. He likes to know people, but he didn’t really like them to know him too well.
Chapter 10		“Westerburg found the station in time to catch the end of the Paul Harvey broadcast, and he was forced to agree: The few sketchy details made the anonymous hiker sound distressingly like his friend.” “…he had scrawled ‘Exempt Exempt Exempt Exempt’ and given his name as Iris Fucyu.  Address: ‘None of your damn business.’ Social Security Number: ‘I forget.”		Chris was the kind of person who was so distinct that even a few sketchy details about a body in Alaska could give away his identity to Westerburg. Chris hated the government and everything to do with it. He detested their control over the country and its people and how little they understood the country that they protected.
Chapter 11		“We’d run as fast as we could down strange roads, through the woods, whatever. The whole idea was to lose our bearings, to push ourselves into unknown territory. Then we’d run a slightly slower pace until we found a road we recognized and race home again at full speed. In a certain sense that’s how Chris lived his entire life.” P.112. Chris spent time discussing the state of the world with his peers, contrasting right and wrong, and he would drive around cities talking to homeless people. P.113. Chris was embarrassed by his family trips to Europe, Colorado, and the Caribbean. p.115.		Chris wasn’t afraid of the unknown, he ran into it head-long with not fear. Then he’d wonder around until he found himself and then he’d plow on to the next excursion. Chris wasn’t like other high school kids. Instead of parties he was concerned with moral issues. Morality, overall, was the core concern of his life. He judged other people and himself based on his own, harsh moral principles. Chis didn’t like the ‘lavished’ vacations his family took. His idea of travel was being part of a place. Experiencing it in its true authenticity.
Chapter 12		“If something bothered him, he wouldn’t come right out and say it. He’d keep it to himself, harboring his resentment, letting bad feelings build and build.” P. 122 “Like many people, Chris apparently judged artists and close friends by their work, not their life. Yet he was temporarily incapable of extending such leniency to his father.” P.122		Chris was neither forgiving nor straight forward. This combination could make it impossible to tell if he was mad at you. That’s why his parents never really knew how he loathed them so. Chris was unpredictable when it came to judging others. It was impossible to tell who he would like and who he would dislike.
Chapter 13		“Chris didn’t think twice about risking his own life, but he never would have put Buckley in any kind of danger.” P.128 “Like Chris, Carine is energetic and self-assured, a high achieve, quick to state an opinion.” P.129		In general Chris did not have a lack of respect for life. It was just the concept of losing his life that he probably didn’t really grasp. These traits are the traits that really make up Chris. They are the traits that drove him to clash with his parents and gave him the will to do all of the things that he did.
Chapter 14		“If this trip proves to be fatal and you don’t ever hear from me again I want you to know you’re a great man. I now walk into the wild.” P. 134 “Like McCandless, figures of male authorities aroused in me a confusing medley of corked fury and hunger to please.” P. 134.		Chris was not afraid of death. He was fully aware that his endeavors might kill him, but that was of no concern. That was a big part of why he enjoyed what he did so much. These traits are part of what made Chris’s relationship with his father so rocky and abrasive. This, in turn, played a big part in what he did with his life.
Chapter 15		“Like Chris McCandless, I was a raw youth who mistook passion for insight and acted according to an obscure, gap-ridden logic.” P. 155. “In my case- and, I believe in the case of Chris McCandless- that was a very different thing from wanting to die.” P. 156.		The logical path that Chris followed was full of holes. It was these holes in his thinking that started so much conflict and sparked so may problems. In the end, reality comes out ahead of his idealism. Nowhere, in any of Chris’s travels, did he have any desire to die at all. He was not suicidal or anything of the sort. His constant encounters with danger would indicate that he was, but it was the risk of death, not death itself that compelled him.
Chapter 16		“He was champing at the bit to get out there and get hiking.” P.158 “Alex was clean shaven and had short hair. I could tell by the language that he used that he was a real sharp fella. He wasn’t what you’d call a typical hitchhiker.” P. 158-159.		Chris was anxious about doing the things that obsessed him. Maybe that is why he jumped into Alaska with so little preparation. Even though Chris was a tramp and hitchhiker, he remained the cultured person that he was before he left Atlanta. He always remained himself in his journey, he never go lost in that way.
Chapter 17		“I now wish I had never shot the moose. One of the greatest tragedies of my life.” P. 166 “McCandless was a weak swimmer and had confessed to several people that he was in fact afraid of the water.” P.170		Chris had respect for the wildlife in the environment that he had placed himself in. He saw the animals as more than just a means of food; he saw their life and valued it.
Chapter 18		“Chris would never, ever intentionally burn down a forest, not even to save his life.” P.198 “I have had a happy life and thank the Lord. Goodbye and may God bless all.” P.199		Chris valued the forest more than he valued his own starving, suffering life. That is dedication to nature. Chris died happy and thankful of the life he had had, even though the end was grizzly and unpleasant to say the least. He had a great respect for the world and life in general.