Characterization of Chris McCandless

Chapter 1:

1. Chapter 1, page 3 "Jim Gallien had driven four miles out of Fairbanks when he spotted the hitchhiker standing in the snow beside the road, thumb raised high, shivering in the gray Alaska dawn." My impression on this was that this is pretty impressive because number one, hes standing in the snow with little supplies to keep him warm, and number two, this says he had made it all the way from Georgia. 
2. Chapter 1, page 3. "He didn't appear to be very old: eighteen, maybe nineteen at most." I think this is important because he was actually around 23 years old, so the weather hasn't affected him physically. 

Chapter 2:

1. Chapter 2, page 12. The S.O.S letter Chris had written was a part of this chapter when Ken Thompson and his employee set out for the abandoned bus in the Stampede Trail. When I read that it changed my whole perspective on what was happening in the book because it showed that he was basically about to die.
2. Chapter 2, page 14. "McCandless's remains weighed about sixty-seven pounds." My impression when I read this was that he had obviously been living in a bad way for a long period of time if he had gotten to as little as sixty-seven pounds.

Chapter 3:

1. Chapter 3, page 16. "McCandless was smallish with the hard, stringy physique of an itinerant laborer" When Westerberg said this it almost amazed me because Chris had walked all the way across the country and he still has the physique of someone who had been in temporary labor. 
2. Chapter 3, page 17-18. "I've given jobs to lots of hitchhiker over the years. Most of them weren't much good, didn't really want to work. It was a different story with Alex. He was the hardest worker I've ever seen." This says a lot about Chris as a person, because even after eating the little food he had as he walked across the country, he was willing to put effort into working for someone he had just met.

Chapter 4:  

1. Chapter 4, page 29. "He stripped off the Virginia plates, and hid them." This shows that Chris isn't stupid. He's smart enough to know that there was a greater chance of someone finding Chris if they had his licence plate number.  
2. Chapter 4, page 29. "One hundred twenty-three dollars in legal tender was promptly reduced to ash and smoke." This shows that even after Chris had donated all his money, he had made some good money on his journey but still didn't want to keep it. 

Chapter 5:

1. Chapter 5, page 40. Chris got a job and told his employers his actual name and social security number. This is weired for Chris because he has been so smart about hiding his identity any way he could, but in this situation, he gave the total truth about him. 
2. Chapter 5 page 40. "Frankly, I was surprised he ever got hired." said the assistant manager of the burger place Chris worked at. This was strange because every other place he had worked at said he was the hardest worker they had ever seen, so maybe all the walking Chris had been doing has finally gotten to him.

Chapter 6: 

1. "He was polite, friendly, and well-groomed." Franz said about Chris. This is kind of strange to hear because for someone to not have a house or a shower, you would think that hes dirty.
2. Chris had asked Ron to come pick him up, and immediately Ron accepted and was willing to pick him up. This shows how much of an impact Chris had put on this man through their short friendship. 

Chapter 7:  

1. Chapter 7 page 62. "During those four weeks in Carthage, McCandless worked hard, doing dirty, tedious jobs that nobody else wanted to tackle: mucking out warehouses, exterminating vermin, painting, scything weeds." This shows that even through this whole time he had been hitchhiking he has kept his determination to be a hard worker.
2. Chapter 7 page 68. "To everyones surprise, McCandless sat down at the piano, which he'd never mentioned he knew how to play, and started pounding out honky-tonk country tunes, then ragtime, then Tony Bennett numbers" This shows that even after all this time of walking and not playing, he still had memorized how to play songs

Chapter 11:

1. Chapter 11, page 106 "At the age of two, he got up in the middle of the night, found his way outside without waking his parents, and entered a house down the street to plunder a neighbors candy drawer." This shows that even when he was young he was the kind of person that doesn't have a problem walking to get what he wants, I'd call it an early sense of perseverance. 
2. Chapter 11, page 107. "He wasn't antisocial, - he always had friends, and everybody liked him - but he could go off and entertain himself for hours" Carine says about Chris. Her saying this means that he wasn't just a crazy person that wanted to get away from everybody and everything because he thought no one liked him, he knew what he wanted and he did it. 

Chapter 12:

1. Chapter 12, page 118. "When he walked into the Annandle House, he had a scruffy beard, his hair was long and tangled, and he'd shed thirty pounds from his already lean frame." This says that even before he left his family for good, he had already been getting smaller and smaller from the little eating he has been doing on his journeys.
2. 
   

Chapter 13:

1. Chapter 13, P. 128 "Whats amazing is that even though the pictures were taken ten years apart, his expression is identical." This shows that even through the years it seems that his view on everything stayed basically the same.  
2. Chapter 13, P. 129 "Anyway, I like to talk to you about this because you are the only person in the world that could possibly understand what I'm saying." This shows how close Carine and Chris actually were. 

Chapter 16: 

1. Chapter 16, page 159. "A day and a half later, however, when they arrived in Whitehorse - the capital of Yukon territory and the largest, most cosmopolitan town on the Alaska highway - Stucky had come to enjoy McCandless's company so much that he changed his mind and agreed to drive the boy the entire distance" This is just another example on how much of an impact Chris puts on people on the short period of time he is around them.  
2. Chapter 16, page 160. Stucky says begged and pleaded for Chris to call his parents to let them know where he is, and Chris's response was "Maybe I will, maybe I won't" When Chris says this, it proves to me that he while Chris is making a huge impact on these other people, they're making absolutely no impact on him.

Chapter 17:

1. s
2. s

Chapter 18:

1. Chapter 18, page 199. "I HAVE HAD A HAPPY LIFE AND THANK THE LORD. GOODBYE AND MAY GOD BLESS ALL!" Chris says this. This proves two things, one that he had kept his faith and didn't turn on God because he was dieing so he was obviously still happy. And also that when he knew he was dieing he didn't become a different person, he stayed the same no matter what the situation.
2. Chapter 18, page 199. The book says that the last thing Chris had done in his life was take a picture of himself outside of the bus, skeletal face and all, but he was smiling. This shows that the way he lived his life turned out exactly how he wanted it to, not saying that he wanted to die, but he became one with the land and lived differently from everyone else.