Silence, when used correctly in literature, can add more depth to a story than conversation by allowing the focus to shift completely onto emotional and environmental factors that the character is facing. Into The Wild, written by Jon Krakauer is a great example of this. This book is a rare type of story because the majority of it tells of the "lonesome" travels of Chis McCandless, and his solo adventures that take him across the western seaboard. Normally a book relies heavily on character interaction to develop the character, the plot, and make the reader feel more immersed in the story, however that method is not used in Into The Wild. By using compelling descriptions about McCandless's surroundings, the reader gets a better understanding of the emotions he felt when he was alone. It allows the reader to understand McCandless in a very basic way, the book strips McCandless down to his most natural tendencies and ideals and immerses the reader in his way of life. The other side of this idea is presented in the move adaptation of Into The Wild directed by Sean Penn. In the movie, a lot of the essence of McCandless's lonesome journey is replaced by a vivid retelling of the few personal relationships that he did maintain during his days as a wandering tramp. The use of silence differs in both mediums, but who he interacts with, along with when and where he remains quiet brings about a much deeper meaning to the story.

In Krakauer's novel, he writes the story as someone who seems to admire the way of life McCandless took on, and appeals to the people who also idolize figures such as McCandless and his own idols. He also creatively uses the lack of dialogue and loneliness of the story to paint a picture the reader can immerse themselves in. McCandless spends most of his years on the road by himself, whether that be living alone in a cave in Mexico, or hitchhiking his way around the southwest. He is remarkably alone, however this doesn't bother McCandless. McCandless thrived off of being alone. The thrill of survival was enough to give him that extra adrenaline, which Krakauer masterfully translates in his book. Most of the text in the book isn't conversations, but rather detailed descriptions of how McCandless survived in the wild, and how he traveled place to place. One great example is when Krakauer describes the loss of the Datsun, instead of using personal imagery, or personal dialogue, from the perspective of McCandless, he uses the information that we know about McCandless as a person, and how he acts to create a scene that is vivid and easy to understand and follow. This is exemplified in the passage, "With the battery dead there was no way to get the Datsun running. If he hoped to get the car back to a paved road, McCandless had no choice but to walk out and notify the authorities of his predicament ...  and thus considered it his moral responsibility to flout the laws of the state." (Krakauer, 21) This excerpt shows exactly how Krakauer uses the background knowledge of McCandless' character in replace of conversation or personal thought to convey the story. It allows for the reader to make the interpretations of what exactly McCandless was doing at that point, and it grants the chance to become even more immersed in the story by seeing it through his eyes.

 The other great thing the use of silence allows Krakauer to do is to create a very intimate setting for some scenes that rely on that to get their point across. One of the best examples in this book is a paragraph not too far past the first example, where his trip down the Colorado is explained, "He drifted past saguaros and alkali flats, camped beneath escarpments of naked Precambrian stone ...  McCandless was deterred not in the least." (Krakauer, 24) By using these descriptive elements to describe the physical surroundings of what he may have passed on his journey down the Colorado River, the reader is granted a great image of what McCandless may have looked like kayaking down the river, but the lack of an explicit description allows the reader to come up with their own perspective, and creates a personal connection with this character whose life they are experiencing through the book.

The last reason that Krakauer chooses to use silence as a prominent feature of the recalling of McCandless' journey because McCandless is lonely. There is an undeniable truth that McCandless has nobody to rely on completely throughout his journey. McCandless is largely alone throughout this whole adventure, and while he does meet some great people that ultimately support him regardless of what happens, there is nobody that he can constantly turn to. He made the decision to wander out and take this venture on as his own, and this is very obviously reflected in the writing style that Krakauer chose to write the book in. 

The book is written from a journalistic approach, which approaches the story less as a novel, and more of a report, which recalls certain series of events that ultimately ended up in the death of McCandless. The next most telling style that Krakauer uses is the fact that the majority of the story is told not through personal first person recollections, but rather the bare facts that were left either through stories told to other people, or notes and logs left in journals. This is the ultimate point that silence accentuates in the book, because instead of the personal feelings and bias that comes from a first person recollection, all of that, the emotion and the sensations that McCandless must have been feeling are now left up to the reader to decide. The journals and logs create a good backstory that can be easily drawn from to make these decisions, but in the end it is the readers call to say how McCandless is seen spending these times, and his final moments as well.

Penn, while working off of the same information that Krakauer used to write his book, creates a very noticeably different story than the novel. This, of course, is to be expected, as since it is a movie, less is left up to the imagination. This brings a whole new meaning and understanding of McCandless's life to the audience, because instead of focusing on exactly what was written in the book, Penn took some liberties and flushed out the more relatable scenes in the movie. This deviation from the normal way of writing in the book brings about an interesting perspective of McCandless's life and relationships, as although he personally claims that life is fulfilled from being alone with no possessions or wealth, the movie really brings this notion into question, focusing heavily on the joy that he got from the people he met during his time on the road, and also the damage that was done to his family at home because of his disappearance. 

The biggest difference with the movie is that there is a lack of intimate silent scenes. The majority of the movie is either focused on parts of the story where McCandless is in the company of others and engaging in conversation, narration from his sister, and even in scenes where he is alone, McCandless talks to himself. This impacts the meaning and feeling of the story substantially because it takes away the sense of loneliness that one might get if they just read the book and took it at face value. Instead of having vast expanses of nothingness that McCandless has to walk alone, it is now a story of a bright, enthusiastic young kid who meets people that reflect his personality on his ill-fated journey to Alaska. It can be argued that this is indeed what the story of McCandless consisted of, but the way that the film is created takes away a lot of the solidarity of the situation that McCandless experienced. Looking back at the Colorado River example from earlier, instead of a lone travel down the river, the silence of the journey is broken up by a completely unnecessary subplot with a Swedish couple that help McCandless navigate to the Gulf of Mexico. This takes away from what is the sole purpose of McCandless' journey, to go alone into the wild and survive without the burdens of society telling him what to do, or what he should be doing. Adding this scene makes that goal seem a bit less accomplished and overshadowed in the movie.

The next issue that the movie runs into in regards to McCandless' idea of not needing anyone else, is the love interest, Tracy Tatro, who he meets in the slabs. This small bit of information was barely glazed over in the book, however in the movie, it is turned into a whole romantic interest that a good 10 minutes are focused onto. This takes away from the idea of McCandless' trip because instead of focusing on his goal, it takes an unneeded detour just to appeal to a few more people who would be watching the movie. If there was a single movie that did not need a romantic interest, it would definitely be Into The Wild, as it is a movie based on a book about a man's interest in getting away from society, getting away from the societal norms and living on his own. There is a reason that McCandless leaves all of the friends that he made eventually, and that reason is to keep away from society as much as he can. Tracy being added into the story as a major plot generation, takes that idea and tarnishes it quite a bit by taking away from the main point, the main goal of McCandless.

 Both adaptations of the story of Alexander McCandless are very successful in portraying his story and his journey, and both use the implications of silence in vastly different ways. The biggest difference that these two pieces have is the amount of quiet that McCandless experiences in both. In the book, silence is a key element to the story, and helps drive the story along, however in the movie it is rarely used, and is instead filled with either narration or the conversations that were shared with the people that he met along his journey, achieving a similar progression, but in a different method.

