Key themes
- Christopher McCandless and the romance of self-reinvention through wilderness
- The tension between individualism and the need for human community
- What the American wilderness means as an idea — and what it actually is
About this book
A young man walks into the Alaskan wilderness and doesn't come back; a haunting study of an idealist.
Published in 1996, Into the Wild began as a magazine article for Outside. It has been widely assigned in American high schools and was adapted into a Sean Penn film in 2007. The cause of McCandless's death was debated for years.
Discussion questions
- Krakauer clearly sympathises with McCandless, while many readers find his death avoidable and his rejection of society adolescent. How does Krakauer handle this tension — does the book endorse or critique its subject?
- Into the Wild is as much about Krakauer as about McCandless — he includes his own story of a dangerous climb. What does this parallel accomplish — and does it help or complicate the portrait of McCandless?
- McCandless deliberately destroyed his money, abandoned his car and cut ties with his family. What is Krakauer saying about why intelligent people romanticise radical escape — and what draws readers to this story?
- The book reconstructs McCandless's journey from interviews, letters and his journals. How does Krakauer handle the limits of evidence — and how does uncertainty about the cause of death affect the story's meaning?
- Into the Wild speaks directly to a certain kind of romantic individualism. What is its appeal — and what does the reader's sympathy or lack of it reveal about their own values?
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