Chris McCandless's unusual quest into the wilderness fascinated author Jon Krakauer as well as director Sean Penn, who both retold his story using slightly different methods but effective versions. McCandless grew up in a middle class home in Georgia with a sister, Candine, and two parents. McCandless was a bright student growing up that attended and graduated from Emory University. However, the summer after graduation, McCandless felt that he needed to escape the materialistic society and travel across America in hopes of reaching and conquering the Alaskan wilderness. During his trek up the west coast, McCandless met many people who had similar ideals of transcendentalism and naturalism but still could not grasp his reasoning for living with so little. McCandless or "Alexander Supertramp" as he renamed himself, eventually dies of starvation and destitution and is discovered in an abandoned school bus by moose hunters. This odd yet intriguing story of young Chris McCandless's journey and death gained attention from author Jon Krakauer who studied McCandless intensely in intent to understand his reason for this expedition. Krakauer read McCandless' journal entries, interviewed people who encountered him, and analyzed his few belongings left at his death site in order to retrace his steps and write his book, Into the Wild. Krakauers research of Chris McCandless for the book guided Sean Penn in directing his movie by using unique elements of filmography to exemplify certain characteristics. Krakauer brilliantly uses a journalistic style by placing epigraphs in the beginning of the upcoming chapters and giving maps of McCandless' journey. Similarly, Sean Penn's editing with close ups of McCandless' journals, books, and letters and voice-over narration to further attempt to explain his reasoning of his odyssey. Both Krakauer and Penn aim to give insight on McCandless' train of thought throughout his journey in the Alaskan wilderness.  

Jon Krakauer's use of epigraphs in this story are very essential to understanding why Chris McCandless' went on his exploration of the wild. These epigraphs are placed before each chapter to introduce a thought or theory that will be prevalent during the following chapter. These passages have been taken from books of McCandless's role models and used to show his ideologies. A great example would come from Carthage, which is the third chapter. This chapter has a short epigraph of an excerpt out of Leo Tolstoy's book, Family Happiness. It is also told below the passage that this was highlighted in McCandless' notes, which shows his agreement with Tolstoy's ideologies. Krakauer placed this epigraph before this specific chapter because of the reoccurrence of Tolstoy's books in the chapter. McCandless gave Wayne Westerburg, a temporary host and employer, a copy of "a treasured 1942 edition of Tolstoy's War and Peace." The actual passage in the epigraph tells of Tolstoy's desire for a "calm course of existence" and "excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for love." (Krakauer 15) Later on in the chapter Krakauer really develops McCandless' similarity with Tolstoy in his disinterest of his "calm course of existence" at home and his interest in finding "excitement and danger" out in the wild. (Krakauer 19) Krakauer's placement of this epigraph in the chapter specifically answered the question of why Chris McCandless was embarking on this journey by giving a great journalistic insight on his personal life and beliefs. 

Krakauer's use of maps is unique to this book because it gives the reader a visual of McCandless' stops on his difficult and extensive adventure to Alaska. These maps are placed in the book to answer the question of "how" McCandless got to his destinations and to better show the path in which he took. Krakauer uniquely places the very first map on the first and second pages of the book to initially show how far McCandless will travel in the upcoming chapters. The map is of the United States of America with a continuous dotted line showing McCandless' cross-country journey, beginning in Atlanta and eventually ending up at the Stampede Trail in Alaska. This map is also Krakauer's method of initially telling the reader that the book will not be in a linear sequence of events, meaning that it will pickup somewhere along the way and possibly jump around. That being said, if the book were to be told in a linear sequence, this first map would spoil the entire story. The following map at the beginning of chapter one, proves that the story is in fact non-linear because where the story starts, the map ends. This map is of Alaska and is a lot more detailed than the map of the United States because of its smaller land area. The map gives different labels to cities, rivers, seas, and mountain ranges that are of good reference when reading the chapter. (Krakauer 2) The next chapter is where the map gets even more focused and zoomed-in on the Stampede Trail, showing specific places of importance to McCandless' journey. This map still gives the major landmarks similarly to the last one but in better detail. Krakauer includes comments on the map such as, "end of maintained road" and "park service ranger cabin" and "abandoned bus" to show McCandless's proximity to civilization and for better visualization when reading. (Krakauer 8)  Krakauer's usage of maps in the book is a very helpful resource when reading and imagining these different places that McCandless ventures to. The maps also help with piecing together the questions of how and why McCandless went to certain destinations. 

Likewise Sean Penn's method of interpretation in the movie by his use of editing gives both intimacy and insight between the viewer and McCandless, which is important when understanding his thoughts throughout the journey. Penn's brilliant editing is shown especially in his close-up's of McCandless' readings and writings. The way the camera is zoomed-in on only one word or phrase on the screen gives major emphasis to what is going on in his life. For example, at the near end of the film, Penn creates flashbacks to all the people McCandless has touched in some form on his journey. It then changes scenes to McCandless's very frail state of life in the bus, writing a note in between the paragraphs of an unspecified book. He writes in bold and all capitals that, "happiness is only real when shared." Penn shoots this scene very close up and very focused on just his writing, not the text of the book. This epiphany shows McCandless reflecting on the questions of "what" and "why" and gives the viewer a chance to submit its own opinion.  Another example at the very end of the movie is when McCandless is shown in the bus wailing for help because his ingestion of poisonous sweet pea seeds. The camera then zooms in on his Alaskan plant reference called Tanaina Plantlore.  The camera scrolling from left to right in the pattern of reading, clearly shows the text straight out of the book that the seeds are "highly poisonous and if left untreated could cause starvation, paralysis, or death." Although Penn could have cut this shot of the plant reference guide out of the movie, it would have had less of an insightful effect on the viewer. The editing done in this scene puts the viewer in McCandless' position causing an emotional response. The uses of close-up editing shots by Penn create an importance of McCandless's own readings and writings. By knowing firsthand what McCandless is thinking by the close-up shots, it helps the viewer answer the questions of "how", "what", "why", "when", and "where." 

Penn's use of voice-over narration is an important part of the editing done in this movie. McCandless' younger sister, Carine, does this voice-over narration to create an alternative source of information about her brother. Her gentle, soft voice makes the movie more heartfelt by creating viewer sympathy for her and her parent's plea for some form of communication with Chris. Carine does not narrate every second of the film because of that would be unnecessary, however, she is very important in relaying information to the viewer, that only a close family member would know. For example, Carine explains her parents secretive past with different families and how her and Chris were born bastards. This private information is told in context of him leaving on his journey and never returning nor making any effort to contact them of his whereabouts. This type of personal narration gives a background of what type of person Chris is and why he would want to embark on this adventure. 

In conclusion, author Jon Krakauer, and director Sean Penn both took a journalistic approach to dissecting the story of Christopher McCandless. Krakauer's use of epigraphs and maps gave an insightful guide to the reader to help better McCandless' ideals and journey. For example, Krakauers placement of epigraphs and maps in the book paved an interesting path of showing the reader "why" and "how" this story went about. In comparison, Sean Penn use of editing, more specifically, close-ups and narration, gave a similar aspect of insight on McCandless' journey that answered the question of "what caused him to go." Both Krakauer and Penn did an excellent job of developing the story and developing McCandless whether it is through Krakauer's more factual and literal path or Penn's more emotional and heartfelt path. 

