Chris McCandless's unusual quest into the wilderness fascinated author Jon Krakauer as well as director Sean Penn. Both retold his story using slightly different, but effective methods. McCandless grew up in a middle class home in Virginia with a sister, Carine, and two parents. McCandless was a bright student growing up who 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 meets many people who have similar ideals of his like transcendentalism, but most still could not grasp his reasoning for going on his trip. McCandless or "Alexander Supertramp" as he renamed himself, eventually dies of starvation and was discovered in an abandoned school bus by moose hunters. Jon Krakauer studied this odd yet intriguing story of young Chris McCandless's journey and death etc. in intent to understand his reason for this expedition. Krakauer read McCandless's journal entries, interviewed people who encountered him, and analyzed his few belongings left at the death site in order to retrace his steps and write his book, Into the Wild. Krakauer's research of Chris McCandless for the book guided Sean Penn in directing his movie with all of unique elements of cinematography to display certain characteristics. Krakauer uses a journalistic style by placing epigraphs in the beginning of the upcoming chapters and giving maps of McCandless' journey while Penn's uses with close ups of McCandless journals, books, and letters and voice-over narration further attempt to explain McCandless's reasoning for his odyssey. Both Krakauer and Penn aim to give insight on McCandless' train of thought throughout his journey in the Alaskan wilderness and figure out the cause of his desire to escape everything.     

Jon Krakauer's 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' role models and are used to show his ideology. A great example comes from "Carthage", which is the third chapter in this book. This chapter has a short epigraph of an excerpt out of Leo Tolstoy's, "Family Happiness". It is also told below the passage that this was highlighted in McCandless' notes, which shows his agreement with Tolstoy's ideas. 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" (Krakauer 19). 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 their disinterest of "calm course of existence" at McCandless' home and during college and his interest in finding "excitement and danger" out in the Alaskan wilderness (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 maps are very unique to this book because it helps the reader see McCandless actual journey to Alaska instead of having to piece together his trip without a visual representation. These maps are placed in the book to answer the question of "how" McCandless got to his destinations and to better show the path 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. 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 a good reference when reading the chapter (Krakauer 2). The next chapter called "The Stampede Trail", is where the map gets even more focused and zoomed-in, showing specific places of importance to McCandless' journey similarly to the last one but in much greater detail. For example, 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 use 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 McCandless completed his journey and why McCandless took the path to his destination that he did. 

Likewise Sean Penn's interpretation of 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 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, near the 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 his writing, not the text of the book. This epiphany shows McCandless reflecting on the questions of "what" and "why" and challenges the viewer to formulate an opinion on McCandless' decisions.  Another example at the very end of the movie is when McCandless is shown in the bus wailing for help because he ingests poisonous sweet peas. The camera then zooms in on his Alaskan plant reference called Tanaina Plantlore. While zoomed in on the book, the camera pans from left to right to imitate Chris reading the chilling facts that state that the plant is, "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 creating an emotional response. The use of close-up editing shots by Penn creates 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 actress, 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 encouraging viewer sympathy for her and her parent's plea for some form of communication with Chris. Carine is also 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 give 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. 

