"Death of an Innocent"

The story of Christopher McCandless told through the article “Death of an Innocent’ by Jon Krakauer, is an exceptional story about a young man who not only defied the image of an average college student, but also defied the image of the average American.
It is pointed out in “Death of an Innocent” that Christopher McCandless (also known as Alex Supertramp), was very different from others his age. During his college career at Emory here in Georgia, he strayed away from the things that his friends and others his age were taking interest in. “Social life at Emory revolved around fraternities and sororities, something Chris wanted no part of. And when everybody started going Greek, he kind of pulled back from his old friends and got more heavily into himself” (8). However, his story is not sensational just because he did more that sit about and binge drink his college days away at the frat house. It is because he attempted to do feats that many past their college years would do. From an early age, it was pointed out that Christopher McCandless “marched to a different drummer” ( Death of an Innocent 7). He was willing to do things others were not willing to do from an early age. According to Krakauer, at ten years old McCandless ran in his first race that included approximately one thousand adults and finished sixty ninth.
McCandless reminds me of what I used to see growing up in New York. During my pre teenager and teenage years, I would have to travel into the city (Manhattan) for school. Both my middle school and my high school were on the west side, which was home to some of the oddest homeless people I had ever seen. These homeless people were not shriveled up, and they did not appear to be mentally unstable. They were scrawny white kids that sported hand written, “I will… for food” signs, whom I had always presumed to be acid or some crazy “white kid drug” users, because how many white kids did I know living homeless on the streets in New York City. To be quite honest, none. It was not until my freshman year of high school, when a teacher told us that these teenagers left their comfortable suburban (sometimes lavish) lifestyles to travel across the country. They were letting go of the stability of their money, and delving in to see what it was like without that security.
When I thought about what they did, I did not even stop to think that I should at least admire what they were doing. The first thing that came to my mind was that they were obviously crazy. No one in their right mind should leave home to live on a New York City street. After all, why would anyone want to leave economic security to travel with hardly anything to survive on? Unfortunately, the same belief is shared by many others. According to Jon Krakauer, “when news of McCandless’s fate came to light, most Alaskans were quick to dismiss him as a nut case” (9).