For an essay, I have to pick an epigraph from Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer, which best explains Krakauer's purpose in writing this book. Can...

Krakauer has a number of reasons to write Into the Wild.In the Author's Note in the Anchor Books edition, Krakauer lists a few: he is interested in the "grip wilderness has on the American imagination," in the allure of high risk activities, and in the "highly charged bonds between fathers and sons." At bottom, I think Krakauer writes the book to try to understand why McCandless did what he did, and to describe the...

Krakauer has a number of reasons to write Into the Wild. In the Author's Note in the Anchor Books edition, Krakauer lists a few: he is interested in the "grip wilderness has on the American imagination," in the allure of high risk activities, and in the "highly charged bonds between fathers and sons." At bottom, I think Krakauer writes the book to try to understand why McCandless did what he did, and to describe the volitile mixture of extreme self confidence, practical skill, and rampant Romanticism that made McCandless the person he was. But mostly, I think, Krakauer is drawn to McCandless's story because he sees something of himself in Chris. McCandless was a person who had a dream and followed it to the end. So in a way, writing McCandless's biography is a kind of inside way for Krakauer to write about his own need for the wild. Perhaps the book is an expression of Krakauer's own dream.