42
In this datum, McCandless met some locals that in unintended way, but he actually needed, he made friends with them, even as a family too McCandless’s
coming in Franz’s life made Franz wanted to adopt him as a grandson, but McCandless refused it, he wanted to be free.
4.2.1.3 Simple Life
Backpacking life is simple life, like Amish people, like Gypsies, or like Thoreau’s life. They do not live in a big and luxurious hotel; they do not eat in the classy and
expensive restaurant. They live on the road, in their van; in some cheap motels even sleep in the bushes, and they prefer public transportation even hitchhiking.
Here is datum 6 By then Chris was long gone. Five weeks earlier he’d loaded all his
belongings into his little car and headed west without an itinerary. The trip was to be an odyssey in the fullest sense of the word, an epic journey that
would change everything. He had spent the previous four years, as he saw it, preparing to fulfill an absurd and onerous duty: to graduate from
college. At long last he was unencumbered, emancipated from the stifling world of his parents and peers, a world of abstraction and security and
material excess, a world in which he felt grievously cut off from the raw throb of existence
.
In this datum, it tells about why McCandless left his house and all the conformity he had. He wanted to be free, live without security and material excess
he got form the parents and the world he lived. He just wanted to live simple,
43
quiet and peaceful. He tired of being ruled by his college, his parents and things form modern society that he regarded as fakes, like material things, attention and
security from his parents security. In datum 4, it tells about McCandless backpacking’s life, splendid
adventure but very simple life he through on, he used no phone, no pet, no pool, no cigarette. He lived by himself and love nature more. During he lived with his
family, his parents would give him everything he need. But he felt bored with everything he had, so by backpacking he finally fulfilled his desire and his dream
to life simple without everything which measured by money. Also though he had some money to buy everything he needs, but just spent as he needed. He moved
from one place to another place by hitchhiking, slept in the tent even in the bushes, having a shower in the river or waterfall. In a nutshell he lived close to
nature. One of his favorite authors, Henry David Thoreau is the one who inspired
him to live simple and worshipped nature, like in the datum 7; No man ever followed his genius till it misled him. Though the result were
bodily weakness, yet perhaps no one can say that the consequences were to be regretted, for these were a life in conformity to higher principles. If the
day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry,
more immortal,—that is your success. All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself. The greatest gains and values
are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist.
44
We soon forget them. They are the highest reality... The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of
morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU, WALDEN OR LIFE IN THE WOODS PASSAGE HIGHLIGHTED IN ONE OF THE BOOKS FOUND WITH
CHRIS MCCANDLESS’S REMAINS
As Thoreau’s life reflected in his book, Walden, it fascinated and poisoned McCandless’s live. That he reflected to into his life, he through on his life as his
authors did.
4.2.2 Modern policy which is protested through backpacking in the Into the Wild novel
