Tuesday 20 March 2012

Into the wild


For some people money, a good job and education and a perfect family is everything they could ever want. But what if you already have all those things, and you still did not understand the point with it all, what do you do then? Do you work harder to achieve an even greater success? Do you make sure to earn even more money? The movie “Into the wild” is about a boy who struggles with exactly this. He has everything anyone could ever want. He has a wealth family, a great education, and good jobs are thrown at him. Nevertheless, even though he has got it “all” he does not have anything. Christopher McCandless rejects his parent’s lifestyle and travels into the wild.

The book about Christopher is based on a real story . Therefore it is hard to really understand what he wanted to find when he left. Did he want to find “himself”, did he want to find love, or did he want to find the meaning with life? No one knows. Moreover, did he have a goal? Since no one knows, in this blog post I am going to write briefly about why I think he left, and why I think he did all the things he did.

First of all, Christopher is not an ordinary person; he does not want what everybody else wants. He wants something with a deeper meaning than materialistic gadgets. On the other hand, I don’t think that even he knows what he is looking for. All he knows is that whatever it is he is looking for, he has to find it. However before he left he had entered rock bottom, he had nothing to loose, but everything to gain.  That is perhaps why he just travels and stays where the road leads him. I think that it did not really matter to him where he went, because nothing could be worse for him, than what he came from. On the other hand, he did have one goal, and this goal was Alaska. So after a long journey without any money and little supplies, he travels towards Alaska.

Why Alaska? Just like all the other questions, this one is also hard to answer and understand. The difference between Alaska and the other places he had been was that he intentionally went to Alaska so he would not meet any human beings. He wanted to be all by himself. Perhaps he went there to clear his mind. He knew that he would not be influenced by anyone there, so it would only be him and his own thoughts.

He was extremely stubborn, he had to be. I think that after a while in Alaska Christopher was tired of traveling and wanted to go home. However he was making a statement, therefore I think he was afraid that people would think he gave up. In the end I think he stayed in Alaska just to stay in Alaska! On the other hand, he tried to return home, but realized that he could not cross the river, so he turned back. What he did not know is that there was a way to get over the river, just a few miles from where he stood, but he did not find it. Actually he did not look for a way to get across the river, he just went back.

At the end of the trip he got very sick. He was poisoned by a flower, therefore he was very weak. That could be a reason why he did not look for a way to cross the river. However, I think that he did not want it enough; I think that if he really wanted to go home, he would try to find a way to cross the river. But, then again, no one really knows what he wanted, so it is hard to come up with a conclusion of what he was doing and what he was thinking.