Into the Wild Review

Plot outline:

Characters in Into the Wild

Christopher McCandless (Alexander Supertramp)

Chris McCandless is the subject of Into the Wild. McCandless is an intelligent, extremely intense young man with a streak of stubborn idealism. He grows up in a wealthy suburb of Washington, D.C., where he succeeds both academically and athletically. He graduates from Emory University with honors in 1990, and soon afterwards gives all of his savings to charity, starts going by the name of "Alex," abandons almost all of his possessions, and spends two years hitchhiking and traveling around the west. He then hitchhikes to Alaska, where he walks alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley in April 1992. He is found dead four months later.

Jim Gallien

Jim Gallien is a union electrician and accomplished hunter and woodsman who picks up “Alex” four miles outside of Fairbanks and drives him to Denali. He is the last person to see McCandless alive.

Wayne Westerberg

Wayne Westerberg is the owner of a grain elevator in Carthage, South Dakota, who meets McCandless when he picks him up hitchhiking in 1990. He gives McCandless jobs multiple times, and becomes close to him.

Walt McCandless

Chris’s father, Walt is an eminent aerospace engineer and the father of children from two marriages. He is fifty-six at the time of Chris’s death. He is taciturn, passionate and stubborn, much like his son, and also brilliant, musically talented, with a mercurial temper.

Billie McCandless

Chris and Carine’s mother, Billie is a very petite woman who meets Walt while working as a secretary at the company he works for before they split off to start their own company together. Like Walt and her children, she is very passionate, with a strong temper. Carine McCandless

Carine is Chris’s younger sister, with whom he is extremely close. Carine looks a lot like Chris, and is also energetic, self-assured, and a high-achiever, but unlike Chris is very gregarious, forgiving of people’s faults, and happily fits into capitalist society.

Jan Burres (and Rainey)

Jan Burres is a middle-aged rubber tramp who travels around the West selling knick-knacks at flea markets. She meets McCandless when she picks him up hitchhiking. They become close, and he stays in written contact with her until going into the Alaskan wilderness.

Lori Zarza

Lori Zarza is the second assistant manager at the McDonald’s where McCandless works in Bullhead City, who is surprised that Chris gets hired and encourages him to use better hygiene.

Ronald Franz

Ronald Franz is an eighty-year old devout Christian and soldier who picks McCandless up hitchhiking and takes a strong liking to him. He has lost his wife and children long ago, and so feels a fatherly affection for Chris, whom he offers to adopt. After hearing of Chris’s death, he stops believing in God.

Tracy Tatro

Tracy Tatro is the young woman that Chris befriends with Jan and Rainey. Although she would like to cultivate a relationship with him, Chris shows her true friendship and encourages her to fulfill her own dreams. He does not lose focus on his goal of reaching Alaska alone.

Conflict

Theme in Into the Wild

Theme Topic Theme Statement