Direct and Indirect Characterization of Chris McCandless

Direct Characterization- Direct Characterization tells the audience what the personality of the character is
Indirect Characterization- shows things that reveal the personality of a character
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Direct and Indirect Characterization

Direct:
1. McCandless is well educated. Krakauer shows this when he says that, “In May 1990, Chris graduated from Emory University in Atlanta, where he’d been a columnist, and editor of, the student newspaper, The Emory Wheel, and had distinguished himself as a history and anthropology major with a 3.72 grade- point average.” (p.20)
2. McCandless is confident because he thinks he can survive in the wilderness with the small amounts of food and gear he has. “No thanks anyway, I’ll be fine with what I’ve got.” (p.6)
3. Chris is unorthodox because he lives a strange lifestyle that is very simple. Krakauer shows this he describes Chris’s room, “Chris had lived off campus in a monkish room furnished with little more than a thin mattress on the floor, milk crates, and a table.”
4. He was a hard worker at whatever he did. “It was a different story with Alex. He has the hardest worker I’d ever seen.” (p.18)
5. He is afraid of water. Krakauer tells the reader this when Chris says, “I was out on the ocean in a canoe, and I almost drowned when a storm came up.” (p.5)
6. Chris is very determined. Jim Galien tries to talk him out of it but he says that, “there was no talking him out of it.”
Indirect:
1. Chris is very independent. Krakauer shows this by him telling about Chris’s tendencies to go away from the popular options and running away from his home. He shows this when Chris is talking to Jim and says that he is going to “live off the land for a few months” which shows that he has run away from his home. (p.4)
2. Chris is a likable guy. Everyone he meets seems to like him. When Wayne Westerberg meets him he describes him as “an amiable kid” and that “There was something arresting about the youngster’s eyes.”
3. Chris finds lots of meaning in books. The book shows this because when he is found with all the books in the bus with him and that he gave his copy of War and Peace to Wayne means that books meant a lot to him. “Before departing, he gave Westerberg a treasured 1942 edition of Tolstoy’s War and Peace.” He tells Wayne to find deeper meaning the book while reading it.
4. Chris has problems with his family. Krakauer shows this when he is talking to Galien and says, “Alex answered calmly that no, no one knew of his plans, that in fact he hadn’t spoken to his family in over 2 years.”
5. Crhis wanted to be free from the modern world. He shows this when he severs the connection from his old life by changing his name to Alex Supertramp. “No longer would he answer to Chris McCandless, he was now Alex Supertramp, master of his ouwn destiny.”