Revised Paragraph

Wilderness is no longer correctly described in civilized societies. Krakauer describes McCandless as an ambitious man seeking wilderness to rebuild his character free of civilization. But what he found, Krakauer reports “the wilderness surrounding the bus- the patch of overgrown country where McCandless was determined “to become lost in the wild”-scarely qualifies as wilderness by Alaskan standards” (350). McCandless was not an experienced wilderness man, he did not know the difference between the “overgrown country” from the real, raw and uncultivated piece of land. He was not lost and scared as previous details of Krakauer’s description tells us that where McCandless stayed it was barely classified as wilderness. It shows that a common man, whom Chris was, is not able to differentiate between wilderness and an overgrown nature field. McCandless’s struggling efforts to be in the wilderness that ultimately lead to his death can be best explained by the parallels that can be drawn from Siebert’s “An Elephant Crackup?” essay. Siebert explains that traumatic elephants are ever-seeking for wilderness and it’s the only place where they can function healthy. Siebert observes “even as we are forcing them [the wild elephants] out, it seems, the elephants are going out of their way to put us, the keepers, in an ever discomfiting place, challenging us to preserve someplace for them…”(540). Elephants are clearly showing their discontent by putting pressure on humans to preserve wilderness just for them. That’s why Chris McCandless was not able to fully engulf himself in the wilderness and successfully live of the land. Wilderness is not meant for the civilized world. Another author, David Abram brings up another point that people have to be exposed to wilderness in order to understand the needs of the larger ecological field. Abram explains “these [the “shamanic healing techniques” becoming popular in the west] are noble aims to be sure, yet they are secondary to and derivative from the primary role of the indigenous shaman, a role that cannot be fulfilled without long and sustained exposure to wild nature, to its patterns and vicissitudes”(16). In civilized western nations “the healers” can never achieve the same level of connection with nature that would allow the mediators of the nature to understand the current problems. As evident from “Into the Wild”, most people cannot differentiate and understand that wilderness is a lot more than what we just think, also wilderness is destroyed by the expansion of civilization.