Into the Wild Blog #3

Twenty Things I have learned so far about Chris (from the standpoint of being twelve chapters into the book):
1. He is very independent
2. He was unforgiving of most people
3. He could harbor a grudge for a very long time.
4. He purchased a yellow Datsun during his senior year of high school.
5. He did not like to take orders or instruction from people.
6. He was very good at distance running.
7. He never had the patience to perfect his skill at any sport.
8. He loved the wilderness, loved to explore.
9. He did not rely on people much.
10. He scorned the Democratic Party.
11. He spent some of his time living in hobo and vagabond camps in the desert.
12. He made his way down the Colorado river into Mexico in a canoe.
13. He was very determined. Once he set his mind on something, no one could deter him from that path.
14. After abandoning his Datsun, he took to hitch hiking like a fish to water.
15. He went hobo for a while, "riding the rails", jumping trains to get up and down the coast.
16. When people tried to give him help, he more often than not turned it away.
17. He did not seem to believe he had any effect on anyone he came across. He did his best to brush them away when he felt the need to move on, and he thought that they didn't care; that they just forgot about him the moment he walked out of their lives. But he was wrong about that.
18. He had a sister named Carine, with whom he was very close.
19. Once he found out about his father's infidelity, he lost what little respect he had left for his father.
20. Although smoldering with rage on the inside, he never confronted his parents about the fact that they hid the details of his father's earlier divorce from him.

His last letter to his parents seems very brief, almost forced. He includes no detail about himself, though his parents must have been very worried. He dances around topics, and doesn't go into any detail. He doesn't even say he maybe cares about his parents or family; he just writes "say hi to everyone for me" and leaves it at that. Therefore, I can infer that he obviously does not have a very good relationship with his family, or at the very least, his parents, as this letter was supposed to be to his parents. Who knows if he sent anything else to his sister. His intentions, with the letter, were to, I think, try to deter the worry that his parents must be feeling at that point. Chris obviously did not want anyone following him or trying to convince him to come home, so he was being as brief as possible while still "checking in", in the hopes that they wouldn't worry as much, and would just leave him alone.

Now, those actions Chris took were very radical, for even the most extremists. And, unfortunately, there is no way of knowing for sure what on earth could have possibly motivated him to take such desperate actions. Changing ones name can be looked at many different ways. He could have been having an identity crisis, which I highly doubt. He could have been simply trying to make a statement, something like "Hey, I'm a free spirit and no one can quell that out of me!" Changing ones name is also a good method of disappearing, as they will all be looking for you as what you were called before, and if you're going around doing everything under a different name, they're going to have some issues.
The giving of the money away, that could have a number of issues behind it as well. He seemed like the sort who would not want to waste anything, as we can tell by the way he tries to live as simply as possible. Therefore, by giving the money to charity, he was getting rid of it, but he wasn't wasting it.

I would like to point out here that he did not abandon his car and what remained of his possessions until he had traversed a large chunk of the country in it. At that point, he decided to just completely abandon everything he had remaining with him. That action could have been motivated by many things: exasperation, exhaustion, annoyance, and so on and so forth. Who knows what he was feeling when he was stuck in the desert after a flash flood and his car wouldn't start. He probably just grew sick of it all and decided then and there to leave it. A radical motion that could not be later reversed. The note he left in the car also suggests a spur of the moment decision, made in anger: "This piece of &!*# has been abandoned. Whoever can get it out of here can have it." This suggests he was just tired of the car at this point and wanted nothing more to do with it at that point.

So, any of the decisions he made could have been made in the heat of extreme emotion, an irreversible spur of the moment decision. But I suppose none of us will ever really know. Speculation can only go so far.