The more I started reading and really trying to understand the journey Chris went on, the more I started accepting him and his approach toward his love for the wilderness. In the beginning, for my second paper actually, I took the focus of how idiotic and unintelligent his decision to go into the wild was. With no background information other than how smart Chris was and how bright of a future he had, I felt it was childish of him to waste such potential. As the book continued and I began to find out more about Chris, for example his father's affair, I started realizing he had MORE of a reason than I previously imagined. With all this said and a bit more emotion felt toward's McCandless, I still feel he could have been a lot more prepared and had a successful journey. The Topographic map is a great example, having this could have helped him realize(had he not) how close he was to get help when he was nearing what felt like death. I feel like a great book could have been created by Chris himself had he survived such a life-altering journey, which would have really benefitted and influenced individuals.
Considering the way Chris personally felt about not bringing the map, I think he was doing it simply the way he done other things. Chris came unprepared in many different areas, and the map was a way of staying "incognito" among other things he abandoned (Krakauer 176). I feel the best words to describe his actions were "unaware and over-confident," not really thinking about how that map could impact him in the future but not really caring in a sense. Thinking his escape route was destroyed with there being no other way out, Chris returned to the bus and eventually starved. Had that map been available, he could have formed another way out or atleast had a better idea of where "salvation" existed (Krakauer 176).
As I am still taking the approach towards Chris' selfishness, Krakauer's approach seems a bit biased. The whole book, sharing many similar qualities with McCandless himself, Krakauer has explained to the best of his abilities "why" Chris would do the things he did. This was effective, helping me think outside the box a little bit, but not enough to persuade me the other way completely. Krakauer has done a great job setting up this sense of credibility we should have for Chris, which has helped me understand his journey a bit more but his bias has really come out towards the end of the book. As for effective, it probably is for many, but not exactly for me.
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Nice long response Taylor. Your views seem similar to mine in some ways. For example, we both started to accept McCandless's story from Krakauer as time went along. Getting to your response, in the first paragraph, I like the references to Chris's life and the entire course of the story. Moving along to the map, I liked how you used the lack of him bring resources as incognito. That's an interesting way to look at it nonetheless. To sum it all up, Krakauer does seem to be persuading the reader to believe what he does. It does persuade others to switch, but not all. Way to stick to your thoughts man.
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