After first reading the excerpt from Into the Wild I thought that McCandles (Alex) had gotten caught up in the novel written by Leo Tolstoy. I thought after reading the novel he then wanted to leave the life of the character in the novel to see how life would be if he experienced it that way. Indeed that was not why Alex wanted to go on his adventure into the bush(wild). After getting the background information about Alex things that you read in the beginning start to all come together and give you a better understanding of how Alex became the way he was. The story of McCandles is somewhat controversial to people because they don't understand how a college student could have went through all that happened in the reading.
Alex came from a wealthy and groomed family. When Alex was young his parents took notice to his ambitious to be the best. In high school his teammates realized that there was something different about him. He make them go run in unknown areas so that they would almost feel lost. Then when they would run slightly until they found a road they new and then sprint back to where they started. Alex did this because he believed that it was all mental and it quite simple to just focus your energy and win a race if you went to this regiment know as "The Road Warriors" Alex as you can see wasn't like the typical high school student and would continue to be that way the rest of his life.
Entering college Alex bought a Datsun and started going on little adventures. Then while in college some of his friends started noticing that he was changing. Alex began to start distancing himself from his friends. This is when he began to want to go on more roads trips and not talk to his parents and sister. When he graduated from Emory with a degree in history/anthropology, he declined membership into Phi Beta Kappa because he thought that titles and honors where not important. He also donated the rest of his college fund to the Oxford Famine Relief Fund. This is when he began to not have contact with anybody he knew after he graduated.
By the end of the reading Alex dies in the woods in Alaska. People all have different thoughts about why he went into the woods in the first place. Some believe it was a suicide. Reading the excerpt I gather that in his youth he read a lot and this was were his insight to know things and get better made him become very passionate. His passion then made him cocky and then when became set on an idea no one could get him to change his mind. Alex had become so composed with wanting to figure why things were not fair for everyone, that he started to become agitated by that and lashed out by not contacting his family when he went on adventures. In the woods he began to figure out himself and become more in tune with himself. He did try to come back to civilization but couldn't make it by foot and didn't want any help. But in his passing away he was calm and at peace with his self. This reading taught me that you can't try hide from your problems and try and fix them as you are hiding because the result don't always come out how you expected. In a since only fix the things you can fix and make a plan for how to fix everything else because you can self destruct.
Alex came from a wealthy and groomed family. When Alex was young his parents took notice to his ambitious to be the best. In high school his teammates realized that there was something different about him. He make them go run in unknown areas so that they would almost feel lost. Then when they would run slightly until they found a road they new and then sprint back to where they started. Alex did this because he believed that it was all mental and it quite simple to just focus your energy and win a race if you went to this regiment know as "The Road Warriors" Alex as you can see wasn't like the typical high school student and would continue to be that way the rest of his life.
Entering college Alex bought a Datsun and started going on little adventures. Then while in college some of his friends started noticing that he was changing. Alex began to start distancing himself from his friends. This is when he began to want to go on more roads trips and not talk to his parents and sister. When he graduated from Emory with a degree in history/anthropology, he declined membership into Phi Beta Kappa because he thought that titles and honors where not important. He also donated the rest of his college fund to the Oxford Famine Relief Fund. This is when he began to not have contact with anybody he knew after he graduated.
By the end of the reading Alex dies in the woods in Alaska. People all have different thoughts about why he went into the woods in the first place. Some believe it was a suicide. Reading the excerpt I gather that in his youth he read a lot and this was were his insight to know things and get better made him become very passionate. His passion then made him cocky and then when became set on an idea no one could get him to change his mind. Alex had become so composed with wanting to figure why things were not fair for everyone, that he started to become agitated by that and lashed out by not contacting his family when he went on adventures. In the woods he began to figure out himself and become more in tune with himself. He did try to come back to civilization but couldn't make it by foot and didn't want any help. But in his passing away he was calm and at peace with his self. This reading taught me that you can't try hide from your problems and try and fix them as you are hiding because the result don't always come out how you expected. In a since only fix the things you can fix and make a plan for how to fix everything else because you can self destruct.
1 comments:
"This reading taught me that you can't try hide from your problems and try and fix them as you are hiding because the result don't always come out how you expected."
You made a good point ! I did not think of this while reading about Alex. I thought maybe the reason why he ran off into the woods is because he wanted to get away from the norms of society. Maybe he was hiding from his problems, and thought running from them was the only solution.
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