Summer Reading Guide Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

This guide should help you get more out Into the Wild, one of two summer reading books for Honors English 10. While you don’t have to answer all the questions, it will help you check your understanding and prepare for the summer reading assessment that you will take when you return from the break. Since there are many people mentioned in this book, I have included a character chart to help you keep track of the important ones. There is additional space if you would like to add other characters who are mentioned throughout the reading.

Person/Character Description

Chris McCandless (Alex Supertramp)

Jim Gallien

Jan Burres

Wayne Westerberg

Ronald Franz

Gene Rosellini

John Waterman

Carl McCunn

Everett Ruess

Carine McCandless

Samuel Walter McCandless

Wilhelmina “Billie” McCandless

Jon Krakauer

Pre-Reading Questions 1. Why do you think Jon Krakauer chose to reveal Chris’s death on the cover of the book and in the opening chapters? What are the benefits or disadvantages to this approach?

Chapter 1: The Alaska Interior 2. Before saying goodbye to Jim Galien, Alex gives him his watch saying, “I don’t want to know what time it is. I do not want to know the day it is or where I am. None of that matters.” (7) Why do you think Alex wanted to be unaware of these things? 3. What did Chris accept from Galien?

Chapter 2: The Stampede Trail 4. Given that Chris had no ID and wanted to be so disconnected from society, why do you think he wrote the 113 journal entries mentioned on pg. 13? What do you think keeping a record meant to Chris? Chapter 3: Carthage

5. When describing Chris’ work habits Wayne Westerberg concludes that, “He was what you’d call extremely ethical.” (18) Define ethical in your own terms. Do you see Chris as an ethical person?

6. Why do you think Chris declined membership into Phi Betta Kappa? (20) What do you think of his choice?

Chapter 4: Detrital Wash 7. Consider the final sentences of the opening quotation by Paul Shepard: “To the desert go prophets and hermits; through the deserts go pilgrims and exiles. Here the leaders of the great religions have sought the therapeutic and spiritual values of retreat, not to escape but to find reality.” (25)

Do you think of Alex as a pilgrim searching to get more fully in touch with reality or as an escapist running from the modern world? Explain.

8. In this chapter Krakauer describes Chris dragging a canoe over land for three days and nearly dying in a sudden ocean storm. He also tells how Chris spends 36 days without speaking to another person. What qualities enabled Chris to fulfill these kinds of tasks? Chapter 5: Bullhead City 9. Why do you think Chris took the job at McDonalds? Why, also, do you think he worked at the same steady pace regardless of the number of customers waiting? Finally, what do you think of his fellow employee’s quote: “When he talked, he was always going on about trees and nature and weird stuff like that. We all thought he was missing a few screws” (40)?

Chapter 6: Anza-Borrego 10. Consider the opening quotation from Thoreau. What “intangible” goods did Chris accumulate during his odyssey?

11. Chris’ asserts that, “nothing is more damaging to the adventuresome spirit within a man than a secure future” (57). What do you think Chris means by this statement? Can you relate to it? If so, how?

12. Why do you think Ron Franz became so attached to Chris? Why do you think he reacted to the news of Chris’ death with renunciation and despair? Chapter 7: Carthage 13. Consider Chris’ language in his letter to his sister on p.64. Why do you think he expresses such extreme feelings towards Walt and Billie? Be specific in your response.

14. Krakauer writes, “Like not a few of those seduced by the wild, McCandless seems to have been driven by a variety of lust that supplanted sexual desire. His yearning, in a sense, was too powerful to be quenched by human contact.” What do you make of Chris’s decision to remain celibate? 15. Wayne says, “Unlike most of us, [Chris] was the sort of person who insisted on living out his beliefs.” (67) Do you agree with Wayne? If so, can you list five or more of Chris’s beliefs?

16. When Alex cries, Borah, Wayne’s girlfriend, has an intuition that Chris’ trip might result in his death. (68) Do you think, despite Krakauer’s obvious bias against this opinion, that there was an element of suicidal intent in Chris’ final journey? Use specific facts from Krakauer’s account to support your position. Chapter 8: Alaska 17. This chapter introduces three eccentric Alaskan characters: Gene Rosellini, John Waterman, and Carl McCunn. Why does Krakauer infuse their life stories into his study of Chris?

18. Krakauer writes, “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 is he were. And he wasn’t a nutcase, he wasn’t a sociopath, he wasn’t an outcast. McCandless was something else – although precisely what is hard to say? A pilgrim, perhaps.” (85) What is McCandless to you? Think about your diction carefully.

Chapter 9: Davis Gulch 19. What parallels can you draw between McCandless’ personality and Reuss’s? What differences? Do you feel like you can relate to either character on some level?

Chapter 10: Fairbanks

Chapters 10, 11, 12 and 13 all explore how the people who knew Chris processed the finality of his death. Appropriately, the epigraph for Chapter 10 is the 1992 New York Times article detailing the discovery of an unidentified young man’s body in the bus.

Chapter 11: Chesapeake Beach

20. Why do you think Chris quit the band? What does this choice tell us about his personality? (110) 21. How do the stories about Chris’s childhood help you better understand his behavior in adulthood? Be specific. 22. On pages 113-114 Krakauer explores Chris’ idealism, particularly his desire to help the hungry and the homeless. What do you think motivated Chris to help the less fortunate? 23. To what extent is the description of Chris’ leadership as cross country ski team captain similar to his final odyssey down the Stampede Trail (112)? Chapter 12: Annandale 24. What did Chris discover about his father during his trip to El Segundo, CA two summers earlier? How does Chris’s handling of this family secret resemble Walt’s way of dealing with his two marriages? Chapter 13: Virginia Beach 25. What does this chapter add to this book’s portrait of Chris? Chapters 14 & 15: The Stikine Ice Cap 26. List six reasons Krakauer gives that explain why he included these autobiographical chapters into his study of Chris McCandless. Do you think these autobiographical chapters enhance the book? If so, how? Chapter 16: Alaska Interior 27. Gaylord Stuckey was struck by Chris’ independence and concludes, “He wanted to prove to himself that he could make it on his own, without anybody else’s help.” Why do you think independence was so vital to Chris? Chapters 17 & 18: The Stampede Trail 28. Krakauer wonders why people “seem to despise [Chris] so intensely for having died here” (180). What do you think underlies many people’s scorn for Chris’ desire to live, even at the risk of death, in the wild? Epilogue 29. What did the McCandless family’s visit to Chris’ camp by the bus give [or fail to give] Billie and Walt? Be as specific as possible. 30. Our culture tends to view death as an end that defines or even invalidates the life that preceded it. Consider how different characters view Chris’s death. Does how they view the way he died make them judge his life in a particular way? Explain using one or two characters as specific examples.