Close your eyes and block out any surrounding noise --  a person conversing beside you, car horns blaring in the distance, a door closing --  and imagine hearing wind blow through trees. Picture yourself up high on a mountain feeling the air pierce your skin. Now look around and notice no other human within one hundred miles of you, complete wilderness. This is the feeling that 24 year old Christopher McCandless was in search for when he set out on a cross country voyage to Alaska. The mission in mind: to find himself within the seclusion of the wild. 

Now with your eyes still closed, again picture yourself on the mountains with out a form of ID or source of communication. If you were to die this second, your dead body would have equal significance to the neighboring tree trunk decaying into the Earth. McCandless took his extreme trek an additional step; to challenge societal stigmas by burning his cash and bury his drivers license. Chris McCandless was not only in search of solitude, but rather a search for a deeper purpose in life than what society expected of him. His travels became the obsession of journalist John Krakauer who traced the path leading to a demise in Alaska. In 1996, Krakauer published the compilation into the novel, Into the Wild. The novel was made into a film by director Sean Penn in 2007. Although both pieces tell similar stories of McCandless's life, Krakauer allows room for the audience to develop their own opinion through his journalistic writing style while the artistic style of the film allows Penn to sway the audience's opinion by driving a certain emotional response. 

John Krakauer develops the journalistic style in the novel by telling McCandless's story through interviews with the people whom McCandless encountered. Krakauer narrates the times which these people encountered McCandless and finalizes the section with a direct quote. One man that Krakauer interviews is Ronald Franz. According to Krakauer, he was the one person most powerfully affected by the brief time spent with McCandless (Krakauer, 48).  Franz was an 80 year old man, retired from the army and living in the Arizona desert when he crossed paths with the boy. McCandless was filling water jugs at a liquor - turned convince store and ready to walk back to his campsite when Franz offered him a ride (Krakauer, 50). The description of these two illustrates an extreme difference in not only age but in moral values. Franz was dedicated to the nation while McCandless was challenging it. Despite further differences, a parental instinct instantly drew Franz to McCandless. The unlikely pair talked for hours which turned into days and weeks. McCandless ranted about the wrongs of the society and Franz gave leather working lessons in return (Krakauer, 51). Franz's admiration of McCandless became true and genuine. Krakauer further reveals that during the interview, Ronald Franz said, "When I learned what happened, I renounced the Lord. I withdrew my church membership ...  I decided I couldn't believe in a God that would let something that terrible happen to a boy like Alex," (Krakauer, 60). The audience reads the exact words of the man who grieves the loss of the boy. The insertion of Franz's quote a year after Chris McCandless's death adds personal view of him. It validates the factual story Krakauer writes, but more importantly helps the audience paint an accurate image of Chris. Reading what others said about the boy is more telling of character than reading a description from an author. The author allows the reader to form their own opinion about the subject and possibly forming their own personal bond with the subject in the process. This degree of freedom to shape McCandless connects the reader to his travels and later evokes a deeper emotional response. 

The book ends with a lasting emotional hook by Krakauer's inclusion of direct lines McCandless wrote in a journal. They were the last words before his death. Though lines taken from McCandless's diary are present in the entire novel, the ending lines show that McCandless realized that his end is near. The boy gives a first insight to this when he writes, "EXTREMELY WEAK, FAULT OF POT. SEED. MUCH TROUBLE JUST TO STAND UP. STARVING. GREAT JEOPARDY," (Krakauer, 189).  Previous to the line, there was little negativity mentioned about his time in Alaska. Krakauer follows by explaining possible reasons McCandless could have gotten sick, going on about scientific studies of various poisonous plants. The text is monotonous to read. The author seems to counteract the extremely personal detail with aloof research making the text of McCandless more significant. The reader tends to clings to the words of McCandless while they anxiously read what he must have written next. On a torn page taken form one of McCandless's books; a poem describes death as a natural cycle and men should be prepared for it. The bottom of the page McCandless writes, "I HAVE HAD A HAPPY LIFE AND THANK THE LORD. GOODBYE AND MAY GOD BLESS YOU ALL!" (Krakauer, 199) For final words, the text is not profound but rather quite general. Krakauer allows for the imagination to develop the true overwhelming reality McCandless faced. McCandless was close to death and weak there for making a lengthy farewell impossible to write. With out extravagant detail the boy left the world on, what the audience concludes, enlightened terms. The lack of extravagance, for the audience, makes the death discernible. Because of the personal connection Krakauer allows the reader to form his death evokes a true sense of loss. The novel becomes real, not due to the genre being non fiction, but because his journey and life become real. Krakauer's journalistic style becomes effective in drawing emotion from the reader.

Conversely, Sean Penn's goal was to convey McCandless's travels visually. One way this was accomplished was using the camera angle to emphasize expansive backgrounds. This is used in the beginning of the film when Chris stands on top of a mountain in Alaska, calling out if anyone else can hear him. He begins in the center of the shot with the main focus on him. The camera pans out to focus on the area around Chris. The shot then reveals hundreds of miles of  mountain range. To put the dimension into perspective the only noise present is the long echo of McCandless's call (Penn). He appears insignificant in scale when compared to the expansive mountains. This is the feeling McCandless was in search for when setting out on his journey. The allusion of complete loneliness is perceived by the audience due to the size comparison of the boy to the background. This 360 degree shot is important to Penn's purpose because it draws the audience into the scene and share the environment between McCandless and the audience. This leads to shared emotions. Penn creates a sense of seclusion for the audience to experience which becomes an important theme through the rest of the film.

Penn further enhances this connection to McCandless's emotional path by inserting scenes of animals and nature during important events. Each of the animal scenes were shot in natural lighting with absence of background music. One example was a dramatic shot of birds flying over the ocean against a setting sun. The flock of birds are backlit contrasting to the orange sky. This is during the period of time McCandless stays briefly with a Jan and Bob Burres in California. While the couple is intimate on the beach, Chris is reading a novel --  sporting academic framed reading glasses and perched atop a tall pile of rocks  --  and lifts his glance to see the birds take flight (Penn). The audience experiences an initial feeling of bliss seeing the deep red and orange sunset over an expansive ocean. Penn relays McCandless's appreciation of nature's simplistic beauty. Moreover, the birds taking flight parallels the boy's longing to be free and on the move. McCandless constantly combats the urge to move on after forming bonds with others. The audience reaches this conclusion due to the physical distance the boy is from Jan and Bob on the beach. Watching the birds free to come and go as they please pulls Chris farther away from experiencing these bonds. A nomadic life, which McCandless chooses to follow, is perceived in a positive light. The film inspires the audience to be caught in the beauty of nature and follow that beauty away from other humans. The audience sees the simplicity and beauty in living like this even if they never would have thought so previously. Penn's use of nature to help the audience understand Chris's emotions is strategic in achieving the artistic goal while sticking with the story line.

In order to strengthen the argument, Penn includes a scene of McCandless staying in the city of Los Angeles. This is the only major scene in the movie when he stays in a metropolitan area, and is also the only scene shot at night. The darkness creates a change in mood. The audience watches Chris migrate through the ghetto of LA, where he is approached by the homeless and other displaced people. The scene becomes fragmented when the camera begins showing freeze frames. Street lights and dark alleys become blurred and streaky by second long frozen shot (Penn). The audience struggles to distinguishing the dark forms of people from the city streets and buildings. It becomes an unpleasant scene to watch. Penn evokes distress and anxiety from the viewer. McCandless' dissatisfaction of society aligns with the audience's dissatisfaction with the portrayal of city life. Penn instills McCandless's attitude towards the city into the minds of the audience. The use of cinematography influences the audience to endure the same emotions as McCandless had. 

It is clear that Krakauer impacts the reader by delivering the raw truth of McCandless's life while Sean Penn carries the audiences emotions through the story through influential film styles, in order to evoke emotional responses. They do so because the two men share a common motive --  a deep connection to the story of Christopher McCandless. His adventurous and enduring spirit moved them and a great respect was developed for his vision. Krakauer and Penn share his story in order to create a change in mindset they experienced, for their audiences as well. 

