Author Jon Krakauer and movie director Sean Penn tells the story of a man name Christopher McCandless's journey from Atlanta, Georgia to the Alaskan wilderness. Chris McCandless was from an upper middle class family, but he chose to throw that life away. McCandless viewed material goods as something meaningless needed in life. McCandless instead wanted to live in the wild to prove that it was the real way to attain true happiness. He also wanted to prove to himself and others that it was possible to survive in the wild without the need of modern material goods. In the end, McCandless died during his stay in the Alaskan Wild. He survived for at least one hundred days, because McCandless wrote in his journal that even though he was excited to make it that far he acknowledged he was in a weak state physically. Not long after that entry McCandless died of unknown causes. Krakauer theorizes that McCandless died of eating some sort of moldy potato seed, which was supported by McCandless when he wrote, "Extremely weak, fault of pot. Seed" (Krakauer 189). Throughout McCandless's journey, he kept his experiences written down in a journal. These journal entries would later be used in both Krakauer's book and Penn's movie. Krakauer uses the literary techniques of nonlinear narrative and personal interviews to write a story about McCandless's journey, and Penn uses the filming techniques of cinematography and sound to tell his version. Both Krakauer and Penn would combine their respective techniques to further the viewer's understanding of their take on McCandless's journey. 

Krakauer uses nonlinear narrative to tell his book out of the usual chronological order to switch between the different aspects of McCandless's life. The narrative of the book is constantly switching between the past and what is presently being portrayed in the book. For example in the first chapter sentence reads, "Jim Gallien had driven four miles out of Fairbanks when he spotted the hitchhiker" (Krakauer 3). The book jumps straight into McCandless last known connection with anybody before going into the Alaskan Wilderness. Jim Gallien was the person that drove McCandless to the Stampede Trail where he would begin his journey. The next chapter suddenly talks about the discovery of McCandless's decomposing body founded by random people who decided to visit the bus that he was living in. All of the following chapters follows the similar sequence of starting with a different story. Krakauer uses this technique to first describe a specific experience that McCandless had gone through in a chapter, and the following chapter would be use to give an explanation on why McCandless acted the way he did. This can be seen in chapter eight when Krakauer first presented letters that were written to him that characterize McCandless as being, "idealistic, energetic young guys who overestimated themselves, underestimated the country, and ended up in trouble" (Krakauer 71). These letters were criticizing McCandless and said he brought death upon himself by going into the wilderness without being well prepared. Most of the blame were put on McCandless by the letters. Krakauer tried to protect McCandless from the criticism by bringing up past examples of similar journey by other people. This can be seen in the following chapter when it talks specifically about twenty year old Everett Ruess journey into Utah's desert. Like McCandless, Reuss first hitchhike to travel to different places for fun by himself. Reuss eventually decided to survive in Utah's desert, but he never made it out. By comparing McCandless story to Reuss, Krakauer shows that McCandless journey was not an isolated incident. Krakauer showed that McCandless was not crazy going into the wild, and many people before McCandless also tried dangerous journeys too. McCandless and Reuss were described as "they tried to follow their dream" (Krakauer 96). This chapter helps to show McCandless was not acting on impulse, but rather he knew exactly what danger he was getting himself into.

Another literary technique Krakauer uses is personal interview to understand McCandless through the eyes of other people that knew him. People that were interviewed included McCandless's family, and the various people he met through his journey. Walt McCandless, Chris's dad, stated, "Chris was fearless even when he was little," which shows that Chris was a natural born risk taker (Krakauer 109). This characteristic would explain why Chris would go on his Alaskan Expedition. This piece of information of Chris's childhood also shows that it would not be unusual for this adventurous side of his to show up in his adulthood. Krakauer uses this information to explain that Chris was not just acting on impulse to travel to the Alaskan Wilderness, but it was always possible for Chris to do it. Another information Krakauer gotten out from the interviews with Chris's family was that Walt actually maintained a relationship with his ex-wife while he already had Chris. Walt kept a relationship with his ex-wife and Chris's mom, Billie, at the same time. This happen when Chris was still young, and Walt was able to end his relationship with his ex-wife before Chris grew up and move east. Chris eventually did found out about his dad's relationship with his ex-wife from one of his trip to California. Carine McCandless, Chris's sister, stated, "Chris was the sort of person who brooded about things" (Krakauer 121). Krakauer reasoned from Carine's statement that Chris felt betrayed that his father would do such a horrible things, because Chris's relationship with his parent worsened the summer he graduated from high school. Given the facts that Chris was adventurous and brooded over thing, Krakauer asserts that Chris wanted to get away from all the negativity by leaving everything behind and go into the Alaskan Wilderness. 

In his film version Penn uses the film techniques of cinematography to position and move the camera in different shots to portray a particular scene. In the beginning of the movie starts with Chris being dropped off right outside the Alaskan Wilderness. As Chris starts to make his way into the wilderness, the camera raises up high and shoots a panorama shot of the surroundings. The use of this camera shot shows the vast emptiness of Alaska to the viewer by showing nothing but wilderness in the shot. This high panorama shot intends to give the viewer a foreshadowing of the dangerous situation Chris is about to get himself into. There were certain times the camera did a full shot. For example, a full shot of Walt was shown when he found out about Chris's death. Walt was out in the middle of the street crying hysterically. This lets the viewer know that Walt actually did care for Chris. This is important because Chris was portrayed as someone who really hated his parents. The full shot of Walt completely turns away the notion that Walt did not care about Chris, and that is one of the reason why it contributed to Chris leaving. Penn uses various to cinematography techniques throughout the movie that convey the message that Chris was loved by his family, but Chris just did not understand their feelings.

Penn also used the film technique of sound to make set the mood for different part of the movie. An example would be Penn using different music depending on the situation. The music selections before the scenes when Chris realizes the river can't be crossed were had were upbeat. These upbeat music were to convey the feeling Chris to the audience that he was happy and enjoying the wild. After the river scene, the music turned serious and reminded Chris and the audience how dangerous a situation Chris was in. Towards the end of the movie, a fast-paced heartbeat sound is being played while Chris is lying in the bus after eating the poisonous plants. The heartbeat sound was not normal, and it was use to signify that something is wrong with Chris. Then the heartbeat suddenly stopped and Chris laid still. Penn uses music to tell the audience that this is when Chris died without having to use words. This creates a more emotional scene, because the viewer's attention is focus on Chris without having to listen to anybody speaking. Penn's uses music to convey the feeling that Chris was feeling and wanted the viewer to feel those emotions.

There are scenes where Penn uses camera shots and music to make a scene more detailed. Many scenes of Chris walking around the wild played upbeat music. The upbeat music gave the impression that Chris really did enjoy being out in the wild but not because he was forcing himself to live there. There were multiple close-up shot of Chris's face during his journey smiling and really enjoying the wild. There were serious scene where the music was very alarming, and the camera being constantly jerked around when Chris ate and found out about the poisonous plant. The camera and music mimicked Chris's actions of being flustered and confused. The camera shots and music are used to enhance the particular emotions that Penn wants the audience to feel with Chris.

Krakauer and Penn uses their respective technique to tell the story of Chris. Krakauer uses the literary technique of nonlinear narrative and personal interview in his book to explain why Chris did what he did. Krakauer combine these techniques to present past experiences that might have culminated in Chris's decision to go to Alaska. Meanwhile, Penn uses film technique of cinematography and sound to enhance the feelings that Chris is going through. These techniques makes the story of Chris more descriptive and give an insight into Chris's views of living a simpler life without the stress of the world he lived in.

