Wild Boy

            Into the wild intersects in many ways. The main one is passion, because I believe Chris could've been anywhere in the world, he had options. He didn't go to Alaska because that was all he was allowed to do. He went because he wanted to. He loved the area and that was essentially his passion. He wouldn't let anyone determine what his life would be like. Completely going against the grain is what Chris did and he did things his way. The way this intersects with the class is that it gives an example of following ones passion and how people will think they know whats best for somebody. In Into the Wild Chris was told by his parents

"Go to college, get a law degree, and then you'll be able to have a real impact"(114).

They got him to go to college, he didn't get a law degree, and we know now that he had a real impact on a lot of people, without the law degree. Chris didn't need college for his passion, after he graduated high school he was already on the road and his parents should've just supported his passion. Although his parents didn't want to hurt him they thought they were doing their best. So I don't blame them I blame the dynamic they were committed to by society. I believe we can learn a lot from Chris. He's an example of what to do and what not to do. He says push the limit and live in the now but he's unprepared for a long stay in the wilderness. So we can see the limit line he crossed by not taking advice and believing he can do it all by himself.

          Privilege is another way that the book intersects with the class. The whole notion of Chris being confident that he can even live in the wild has serious ties to privilege. First he's privilege by even having the chance to go to Alaska when he was a little boy. That's where his passion grew from so if he never got a taste of Alaska, he probably would've never conceived the notion of even to dream the place in his thoughts. He was able to become himself because of the rides his family took on the road and to Colorado. Thats where he got his passion for the road.

"On the weekends and when school was out, the family took to the road. They drove to Virginia Beach and the Carolina Shore, to Colorado, to the Great Lakes, to the Blue Ridge Mountains......There was always a little wanderlust in the family, and it was clear early on that Chris had inherited it" (P.108). 

The privilege the family had to even drive a car let alone drive on road trips during the weekend was amazing. Most poor people don't even leave the city they live in, for many reasons. I believe Chris viewed this as a way of getting away from the world because on the road its just him and he could be himself. While having privilege he was able to get on the road because if his father was Black or Latino he wouldn't been able to get that job at NASA let alone allowed to go to a certain University which employers preferred. Because University's were segregated as well.


            Location is another way this intersects with the class. One becomes part of the enviroment in which they grew up in. When a child is born they are instantly cultured by the parents from their views of what is acceptable in the community. So for most people they become the communtiy and inherit certain morals and values of the whole community.  Luckily for Chris he was always on the road as a child, so later in life he became one with the road and the road was his home. He went the opposite way and rebels against his society, community, and family. That's why he was attracted to Bullhead City, because it didn't have anyone there telling him what to do. While there it was the longest place he stayed since Alanta. There, it was no power structure for Chris to be mad at. In Into The Wild

"Bullhead City is a community in the oxymoronic, late-twentieth-century idiom" (P.39)



Nobody cared what Chris did or did not do. It was a place where I think people didn't judge him. He could think freely in this town and didn't have to worry about anything. He was living Hukuna Matata. The town had no discernible center and no real Government and people essentially were able to do what they wanted. It was like the Wild Wild West with no violence. Chris hated the people around him because they had certain views on what a life should be like. Those views created by the society in which Chris rebelled because it wasn't his cup of tea. If Chris was born and raised in Bullhead City his views would be different and thats goes for if he was born in Jasper and Laramie.