The Description of Chris McCandless

CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS

This analysis is to find the answers in the problem formulation. The novel Into the Wild serves as the main resource and the theories in the chapter two are implemented as the supporting theories. This chapter is divided into two sections. The first analysis concerns with the description of Chris in the novel. The second analysis concerns with Chris’s motivations to live off the land. The purpose of analyzing the character is to understand the motivations of the major character to live off the land as described in Into the Wild.

4.1 The Description of Chris McCandless

In the novel, a character plays an important role in building a story. According to Barnet, a character is a figure of a literary work 7. It can be stated that Chris is the character in the novel. According to Milligan, in his theory of character, there are two kinds of character, namely major character and the minor character. Major character is the most important character in a literary work. He plays very important role since he becomes the focus of the story. He plays his role from the beginning until the end of the story and influences the whole story, so his appearance is more often than the other character. Through his action, the idea of the story is conveyed 155. In 22 PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI this novel, Chris is the major character. He appears from the beginning to the end of the story. In order to understand a character fully, Murphy 1972: 161-168 states nine methods of characterization, namely personal description, characters as seen by another, speech, past life, conversation of others, direct comment, reaction, thoughts, and mannerism. Nevertheless, there are only some methods that will be implemented to understand the major character. In this part, the character will be analyzed in details. Quotations from the novel will be used to support the character’s characterizations. Characterization is an important part to present the characters in a novel. It can make the novel interesting for the readers because the story represents the human lives. What happened in the novel can be what happened in our daily lives. Chris is the major character of the novel. Chris is the son of Samuel Walter McCandless, NASA’s project manager with his wife from the second marriage whose name is Billie. By 1965, Chris’s father’s marriage is in trouble. Walt and his wife, Marcia, separate. Walt started dating a secretary at Hughes named Wilhelmina Johnson or called Billie. They fall in love and move in together. Billie gets pregnant. On February 12, 1968, Billie gives birth of son 106. Chris’s father and mother are often so busy with their works which make his father often pay less attention to his family. Their parents work on incredibly hours. When Chris and Carine wake up in the morning, usually they have gone to their office. When Chris and Carine go to bed at night, usually they are still in 23 PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI their office working. They make good money, but they fail to provide much time for their children 107. Chris has a younger sister who is three years old younger. Her name is Carine. Chris loves his sister very much. Both Walt and Billie are tightly wound and emotional, loath to give ground. Chris and Carine often see their parents get quarrels and blaming each other. Therefore, Chris and Carine are so close to each other. They count on each other when their parents are not getting along 107. According to the theory of characterization which is suggested by Murphy in his book, Chris characterization can be seen through his personal description, he as seen by other characters, his speech, his reactions, his thoughts, and his manner.

4.1.1 Smart

Chris is a smart boy. He is good at almost everything that interests him. He does not get many difficulties in learning something that he likes. He brings home good grades. He puts some high values of life according to what he thinks ideal to him. “He seemed extremely intelligent,” Franz states in an exotic brogue that sounds like a blend of Scottish, Pennsylania Dutch, and Carolina drawl. 52 … Franz grew increasingly fond of Mcandless. “God, he was a smart kid.” 53 … “Chris was a high achiever in almost everything that caught his fancy. Academically he brought home A’s with little effort. Only once did he receive grade lower than B: an F, in high school physics.” 109 24 PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI Chris does not get into trouble. He is a high achiever. He does what he is supposed to. His parents do not really have grounds to complain. But they gets on his case about going to college; and whatever they say to him it must have worked. Because he ends up going to Emory, even though he thinks it is pointless, a waste of time and money. His new friends he gets during the road trip to Alaska also think in the same way. They see Chris as a smart and intelligent boy. He can figure out how to paddle a canoe down to Mexico, how to hop freight trains, and how to score a bed at inner-city missions. That is why Burres, one of Chris’s new friends he gats during the trip think that he also will be successful in Alaska. According to Murphy about characterization from characters as seen by another as represented in the analysis above, we can conclude that Chris is a smart boy, especially at what he is interested in. He rarely gets difficulties while doing the activities or subjects that he likes, but he doesn’t like to do something under someone’s order.

4.1.2 Brave

Chris is brave. He dares to get alone without getting lonely. He does not get afraid even though he is outside in the darkness alone. Chris is fearless even when he is a kid. Walt grows quiet, staring absently to the distance. “Chris was fearless even when he was little,” he says after a long pause “He didn’t the odds applied to him. We were always trying to pull him back from the edge.” 109 25 … at a prominent notch called the Keyhole, Walt decided to turn around. He was tired and feeling the altitude. The route above looked slabby, exposed dangerous. “I’d had it, OK,” Walt explains, “but Chris wanted to keep on going to the top. I told him no way. He was only twelve then, so all he could do was complain… 109 When he is a kid, he does not have any trouble with being afraid in the darkness. When he is a little kid, he ever gets up in the middle of the night, finds his way outside without waking up his parents, and enters a house down the street to plunder a neighbor’s candy drawer. When he is a teenage, he often comes to the places in which many people do not want to be there. He often parks down on Fourteenth Street, which his friend thinks is a real bad part of the town. He spends for hours hanging out in creepy places, talking with pimps and hookers and low life. His friend, Eric feels scared when he accompanies Chris there 114. Based on the statements above we can see Krakauer tries to highlight that Chris lives with the bravery to get what he likes and ideal. He ignores any fear which may block him to achieve his goals. He is brave to defend his thoughts and to do what attracts his mind.

4.1.3 Musical

Chris McCandless has musical aptitude. It is seen when he and his sister had some musical rivalry. Nevertheless, it does not damage their relationship. Chris gets his musical aptitude since his early age. Both Carine and Chris share Walt’s musical aptitude. Chris took up the guitar, piano, French horn. Even when he is a kid he loves Tony Bennet. He sings songs like ‘Tender Is the Night’ while Walt accompanies him on piano. He is a good player. Indeed, in a goofy video Chris 26 PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI makes in college, he can be heard belting out “Summer by the seaSailboats in Capri” with impressive panache, crooning like a professional lounge singer 110. Their musical rivalry seems not to have damaged their relationship between Chris and Carine, however. They’d been best friends from an early age, spending hours together building forts out of cushions and blankets in their Annandale living room. “He was very nice to me,” says Carine. 110 Chris has his musical aptitude since he was a kid. He does not want to be left behind from his sister. He quits from high school band not only because he does not want to be told by the band leader about what to do, but also because his sister gets the first chair in the senior band when Chris is his senior. Chris still loves to play music until he makes his trip to Alaska. It can be seen from the old guitar that he brings in his beloved car. The guitar is bought by Walt when Billie gives birth of Chris. Walt buys Billie a Gianini guitar on which she strummed lullabies to soothe the fussy newborn. Twenty two years later, the park rangers from the National Park Service finds the same guitar on the backseat of a yellow Datsun abandoned near the shore of Lake Mead where Chris gets flashflood on his road trip to Alaska 106.

4.1.4 Generous and Obsessed with Social Issues

Chris is obsessed with social issues. It often comes to his mind and attracts his attention much. This is because he studies much about social issues while he is at Woodson University. It always takes Chris so serious if talking about life, race, and other serious things related to such things like society. He likes everything related to social issues. Chris often hangs out during snack break at his locker 27 with his friend and talk about life, the state of the world, serious things. They try to figure out why people make such a big deal about race. Chris talks to his friend about that kind of thing 113. He is obsessed with social issues, especially when his senior year at Woodson, racial oppression in South Africa attracts his attention. He takes life inequities to heart. Even he would like to go to Africa to struggle to end apartheid. He argues with one of his friend, Eric about this problem. Chris does not like going through channels, working within the system, waiting his turn. He would say if he can raise enough money, he wants them to go to South Africa to fight the racism. Nevertheless, his friend thinks that he is just kidding at that time. Then Chris will say that his friend is not seriously dealing with this problem. His friend says that they are a couple of kids, that they couldn’t possibly make a difference. Nevertheless, he can not argue with him. Chris comes back the statement that his friend does not really care about what is right or wrong. The social issues often make Chris to do some favors for others. He spends his money for helping the poor, buying some meals for homeless people, or chatting with prostitutes. It represents that he is a nice person who cares about the others. He wants to help people without differentiating who they are, where they come from, or what race they are. On weekends, when his high school pals were attending “keggers” and trying to sneak into Georgetown bars, McCandless would wander the seedier quarters of Washington, chatting with prostitutes and homeless people, buying them meals, earnestly suggesting ways they might improve their lives. 113 28 “Chris didn’t understand how people could possibly be allowed to go hungry, especially in this country,” says Billie. “He would rave about that kind of thing for hours. 113 Chris always loves helping people. He does it in a lot of times. He even brings a homeless man to his house. On one occasion Chris picks up a homeless man from the streets of D.C., brings him home to leafy, affluent Annandale, and secretly set the guy up in the Airstream trailer beside the garage. Walt and Billie never know he is hosting a vagrant. On another occasion, he drives his car with Hathaway, one of his friends and says to him that he will go downtown. At first, he thinks they will go to Georgetown to party. Instead, Chris parks down on Fourteenth Street, which at the time was a real bad part of town. Then Chris says that they can read about this stuff, but they can not understand until they live it. They spent the next few hours hanging out in creepy places, talking with pimps and hookers and lowlife 113-114.

4.1.5 Stubborn and Persistent

Chris is also quite stubborn. He does not like to do something that makes him bored and uncomfortable. He does not want to do something under pressure or to be told about what to do by someone else. If he likes to do something, he wants to do it by his own way. He has his own ways which can make him feel comfortable when doing something. He puts high standards for himself to achieve. Sometimes he pushes himself to achieve his goals. …“He quit playing partly because he didn’t like being told what to do but also because of me. I wanted to be like Chris, so I started to play French- horn, too. And it turned out to be the one thing I was better at than he was. When I was a freshman and he was a senior, I made first chair in the 29 PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI senior band, and there was no way he was going to sit behind his damn sister.” 110 “Chris had so much natural talent,” Walt continues, “but if you tried to coach him, to polish his skill, to bring out that ten percent, a wall went up. 111 He puts high standards for himself to achieve. Sometimes he pushes himself to achieve his goals. On his trip to Alaska, weary of paddling, he hauls the canoe far up the beach, climbs a sandstone bluff, and sets up camp on the edge of a desolate plateau. He stays there for ten days, until high winds force him to seek refuge in a cave midway up the precipitous face of the bluff, where he remains for another ten days. He greets the new year by observing the full moon as it rose over the Gran Desierto–the Great Desert which is seventeen hundred square miles of shifting dunes, the largest expanse of pure sand desert in North America. A day later he continues paddling down the barren shore 36. It proves that Chris is stubborn and persistent in achieving his wants. …. After a bad race or even a bad time trial during practice, he could be really hard on himself. And he wouldn’t want to talk about it. If I tried to console him, he’d act annoyed and brush me off. He internalized the disappointment. He’d go off alone somewhere and beat himself up. 112 From the statements above, we know that Chris often pushes himself to attain his goals. If he fails to get what his goals, he will get so disappointed. It proves that he puts high standards for himself. This makes Chris persistent in doing something, but off course by his own ways or being controlled by others. It represents that Chris also loves to get himself feel free. 30

4.1.6 Loves the Nature and His Sister

Chris loves the nature since he was a kid. He likes playing with his dog which supposedly his sister’s dog, named Buckley. Chris loves playing around with Buck. He likes gets some running with Buck. … When Chris was twelve, Walt and Billie bought Carine a puppy, a Shetland sheepdog named Buckley, and Chris fell into the habit taking the pet with him on his daily training runs. “Buckley was supposedly my dog,” says Carine “but he and Chris inseparable. 111 Chris always gets excited when his family having outdoor camping or any kinds of outdoor activities. Everything about wildlife always attracts him and brings him closer to the nature. When Chris is eight years old, Walt takes him on his first overnight backpacking trip, a three-day hike in the Shenandoah to climb Old Rag. They make the Summit. He carries his own pack the whole way. Hiking up the mountain becomes a father-son tradition 109. Chris tells Stuckey about his intent to spend the summer alone, in the bush, living off the land. He says it is something he wants to do since he was little. He does not want to see a single person, no airplanes, no sign of civilization. He wants to prove to himself that he could make it on his own, without anybody else’s help 158. He admires his grandfather whose name is Loren Johnson. He was always raising wildlife. Loren lives near to the nature and loves animals. That is the reason why sometimes he gets intrapersonal conflict when he hurts animals. Loren, not surprisingly, was charmed by Chris. And Chris adored his grandfather. The old man’s backwoods savvy, his affinity of wilderness, left a deep impression on the boy. 109 31 Loren Johnson is proud and stubborn and dreamy, a woodsman, a self- taught musician, a writer of poetry. Around Iron Mountain his rapport with creatures of the forest is legendary. He is always raising wildlife. If he finds some animal in trap, take it home, amputate the injured limb, heal it, and then let it go again. One day, Loren hits a mother deer with his truck, making an orphan of its fawn. He is crushed. But he brings the baby deer home and raised it inside the house, behind the woodstove, just like it is one of his kids 108. Since Chris admires his grandfather so much, Chris also likes doing outdoor activities and everything about wildlife as Loren. Sometimes, Loren has to kill wild animals when he works as a hunt guide which makes him unhappy so much. He does it in order to support his family. Chris and Loren share almost the same ideas and feelings about wildlife. Chris also cries when he kills the big animal as his grandfather does. … He opened a stable and sold horse rides for tourists. Much of the food he put on the table from hunting-despite the fact that he was uncomfortable killing animals. “My dad cried every time he shot a deer,” Billie says, “but we had to eat, so he did it.” … 108 … He would guarantee them a buck before they left, but most of them were lousy shots and drank so much that they couldn’t hit anything, so he’d usually had to shoot the deer for them. God he hated that.” 108 Chris is a good brother and best friend for his sister. It is because they spend much time together since they were kids. Chris is a protective brother for Carine. They are so close each other because they have the same point of view about their parents who often quarrel and blame each other. They’d been best friends from an early age, spending hours together building forts out id cushions and blankets in their Annandale living 32 PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI room. “He was always really nice to me,” Carine says “and extremely protective. 110 He is not anti social. He always has friends, and everybody likes them, but he can go off and entertain himself for hours. He does not seem to need toys or friends. He could be alone without being lonely. 107 Chris is friendly and was not anti social. He has some close friends. He just does not quite fit with the word ‘society’. Society which is meant by Chris is the society includes politicians, bureaucrats, and people who do not care about people who need to be helped such as the poor and vagrants. In this case, Chris and his grandfather also have the same opinion about the society. “Billie’s dad didn’t quite fit into society,” Walt explains. “In many ways he and Chris were a lot alike. 108 During his trip to Alaska, Chris introduces himself to his new friends as Alexander Supertramp or Alex, not as Christopher Johnson McCandless. He does this in order to avoid being traced by his family. Chris also gets a lot of friends during his way to Alaska. Chris’s new friends have deep impression about Chris. It is seen from the way his new friends react and feel when Chris leaves them or when they hear information about Chris. When Chris hugs Borah good-bye, she says that she notice he is crying. That frightens her. She has a bad feeling about Chris’s crying before he leaves her for resuming the trip 69. Borah is one of new friends Chris gets during his trip to Alaska. There are many other new friends he gets from that trip. New friends Chris gets also give deep impression to Chris himself. It can be seen from letters that Chris sends to them. Many of these new friends receive mails from Chris. 33 PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI Alex took a ride from us up to Orick Beach, where we were staying, and camped with us for a week. He was a really good kid. We thought the world of him. When he left, we never expected to hear from him again, but he made a point of staying in touch. 31 Chris usually tells his friends about his new friends and also what happens after he leaves them in the letters that he sends them. Not few of them receive mails from Chris more than once. It represents that Chris is a good friend even for new friends he gets. … A week later Westerberg received a terse card with a Montana postmark: APRIL 18. Arrive in White fish this morning on a freight train. I am making a good time. Today I will jump the border and turn north to Alaska. Give my regards to everyone. TAKE CARE, ALEX 69-70 The postcard Chris sends to his new friends above is one of the letters Chris sends to his friends as the regards for them. It proves that Chris is a good friend because he still cares about his friends who do favors for Chris during his trip. In late November, Chris sends a postcard to Jan Burres in care of a post-office box in California’s Imperial Valley. That card they in Niland is the first letter from him in a long time that has a return address on it. Then, she immediately writes back and says they will come see him the next weekend in Bullhead, which is not that far from where they are at that time 43. It shows that Chris still cares about his new friends he gets during the trip and vice versa. From the analysis above, it can be concluded that Chris is smart, brave, and has musical aptitude. He is generous and obsessed with social issues. He is stubborn and persistent. Chris is a nature and wildlife lover. He is also a good friend and brother. 34

4.2 Chris McCandless’s Motivations in Living off the Land in Alaska