MovieChat Forums > Into the Wild (2007) Discussion > Ultimately a suicide?

Ultimately a suicide?

posted 9 years ago by Misstep
7 replies | jump to latest

It's always seemed to me that he was driven more by a desire to die than a desire for an adventure. He seemed too intelligent for extreme sports or other forms of death-daring to not be completely transparent, so he had to construct an elaborate ruse in order to deceive himself. I don't doubt that when it became clear that he WAS going to (finally) die, he took to his bed with the first real peace he'd experienced in many years.

[–] raf-33 9 years ago

It was the complete opposite, he wanted to live, really live, to him everyone was already dead and had forgotten the purpose of life. Possessions accrued over 50 years of toiling do not equal happiness, they equal possessions.

You could see in his face how infuriated he was when he learned that he had eaten the wrong plant, it was as though he had survived nature but inadvertantly killed himself and he was annoyed. He even wrote a note stating that "if you find me, help me - I've eaten bad seeds, I'm dying and need help", but it was only found two weeks after his death.

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[–] sellis1 9 years ago

It's unlikely that eating the wrong plant was what killed him--in real life.

[–] palisade-1 9 years ago

He even wrote a note stating that "if you find me, help me - I've eaten bad seeds, I'm dying and need help", but it was only found two weeks after his death.

That's not what the note said. It read as follows:

ATTENTION POSSIBLE VISITORS
S. O. S.

I need your help.
I am injured, near death, and too weak to hike out of here.
I am all alone, this is NO JOKE. In the name of God, please remain and save me.
I am out collecting berries close by and shall return this evening.
Thank You.
Chris McCandless
August ?

He said in his food diary weeks earlier that the "potato seeds" gave him indigestion. However, all the food he had available or consumed was harmless. He didn't eat the "potato seeds" again. so far as we know. They weren't nutritious, but they were not toxic. He could, however, easily have caught an intestinal bug of some kind -- giardiasis or coccidiosis are both relatively common in wilderness areas, and cause diarrhea, vomiting and weight loss.

Note too, that he says he was injured. We don't know what the injury was, but it may be the explanation for why he did not hike out. It was a more difficult trek back than in, because in summer the ground is unstable and boggy in many places. An able-bodied young man could have managed it, but if he had a torn ligament/tendon or dislocated shoulder or sprained knee, he would not have been able to do it.

There is no evidence he intended to die. He had promised Wayne he would be back in late August to help with the harvest, and he talked of other future plans. He did not bring any winter equipment; he intended his "Alaskan adventure" to be a kind of spiritual odyssey and retreat, a la Thoreau, not a permanent resettlement.

While the movie suggests he was trapped, it was not in fact the case, and he knew it. He did have a map, and besides that, he spent several weeks exploring the whole area before settling in the bus. He would have known about the park service road downstream that had a bridge for service vehicles. He could have walked out that way, but for some reason he waited too long, or the injury or illness took him by surprise.

[–] TwoThousandOneMark 8 years ago

I see it that he wanted to live to the nth degree even if that meant probable life expectancy cut into shards.
He never seems scared, nor would trekking into Alaskan wilderness alone be something to not be fearful of. He probably would've wanted to endure a full season alone outdoors, & then perhaps wander east through northern Canada or back south eventually towards contact with ppl he knew.

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[–] fede_4488 8 years ago

No. Suicide is a deathwish. At no point he showed a desire to die.

[–] !!!deleted!!! (12526472) 8 years ago

I think his main issues were no different to many people's, he did react to them in more extreme ways than most do but I don't agree suicide was a conscious decision. He came to the conclusion that "happiness is only real when shared" and this was a fact from his own writing found in the bus. I think he would have put this in to action and lead a more normal life if he had returned from the bus. He died by accident, which was the result of some naivety and lack of preparedness. The idealised movie is not the complete story, nobody will ever know that except Chris himself so it can only ever be conjecture, but you can learn more that wasn't shown in the film from the books and documentaries about him too, which helps to get more of an idea. For instance, a local ranger found money in his back pack after he died, he did not destroy it all.

[–] Misstep 8 years ago

"He died by accident"
He was a romantic kid who'd mapped out his entire adventure in his head, beforehand. Poisoning may have been the ultimate cause of death, and his eating that toxic whatever may have been an accident, but he surrendered to dying in a way only a person with a genuine desire to die can.

He was unhappy, and he wanted to die. His death was by his own design, for sure.