The Modernized Monk, Christopher McCandless

The protagonist in my novel, Into the Wild, is a young man called Christopher Johnson McCandless. He is a handsome, slender boy from a well-off family and his intelligence is displayed by the fact that he graduated with honours from Emory University. Though Chris is a man of few words, seemingly out of character he disappears from civilization shortly after graduating and ventures out into the wilderness of Alaska. This would seem quite odd for anyone who was previously acquainted to Chris. Perhaps the result of a sudden realization or epiphany, Chris abandons everything he knows including his family, possessions, money, education and car. With an unquenchable thirst for adventure, Chris thrusts himself in to the unknown regardless of risking his life in danger. He is motivated by the idea of "an utterly new life for himself, one in which he would be free to wallow in unfiltered experience" (page 23). He is so serious about this, that Chris adopts a new name, Alex Supertramp. He seemed to be on his way to completing the first few steps towards a promising future and his decision to leave everything he knows behind is staggeringly shocking. Similar to a monk, Chris takes off on a pilgrimage to change his reality. Escaping the typically "absurd and onerous" expectations of the world such as graduating from university to get a respectable occupation or getting married and having children, Chris departs on a personal "odyssey" (page 22). For anyone who has ever wanted to become someone else, has questioned the values and expectations of society and wanted to escape them, Chris is an utterly raw and relatable yet mysterious character.