4/28 Into the Wild post

Two years he walks the earth. No phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes. Ultimate freedom. An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road. Escaped from Atlanta. Thou shalt not return, ‘cause “the West is best.” And now after two rambling years comes the final and greatest adventure. The climactic battle to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual pilgrimage. Ten days and night of freight trains and hitchhiking bring him to the Great White North. No longer to be poisoned by civilization he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become lost in the wild.                  --Alexander Supertramp, May 1992.

            I chose this quote for a number of reasons. It comes at a major point in the story when McCandless is entering ‘the Great White North’ and highlights both his journey so far and his excitement for what is yet to come. There are a number of lines that I thought were really intriguing. “Escaped from Atlanta. Thou shalt not return, ‘cause ‘the West is best.” His use of the word ‘escape’ interesting. McCandless feels that his life in Atlanta was like a prison from which he needed to escape and the quote has a triumphant voice that suggests he is proud of himself for accomplishing this. Although he says “Thou shalt not return…’ it is implied that McCandless is not entering the woods to die but that he will not return to Atlanta or the East, “cause ‘the West is best.”

Given the language he uses, it is easy to see how much he was influenced by transcendentalist writers like Thoreau and Emerson. “No longer to be poisoned by civilization he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become lost in the wild.” The words he chooses speak volumes to his feelings about society and his burning desire for independence and “ultimate freedom.” His entrance into the wild is a culmination of his two year journey to reach “the final and greatest adventure.” He is more than a thrill-seeker. McCandless believes that his only salvation from the poisonous society is solitude and self-reliance. It is these beliefs that drive him toward his “spiritual pilgrimage” in “the Great White North” where he can return to nature and enjoy the “ultimate freedom.”