AP Lang - Into the Wild Chapters 1-10

Question: What pseudonym does Chris McCandless adopt when he begins his journey in Chapter 3?

Answer: Alexander Supertramp

Question: Where does Chris donate his remaining college fund of over twenty-four thousand dollars?

Answer: OXFAM America

Question: What vehicle does Chris abandon in the Detrital Wash after a flash flood?

Answer: His yellow Datsun

Question: Who is the old man in California who develops a grandfatherly bond with Chris in Chapter 6?

Answer: Ron Franz

Question: What specific literary genre does Krakauer use by interspersing personal reflections with McCandless's story?

Answer: Narrative nonfiction

Question: Which 19th-century authors heavily influenced McCandless's rejection of societal materialism?

Answer: Henry David Thoreau and Jack London

Question: What grain elevator operator gives Chris a job and becomes a key figure in Carthage, South Dakota?

Answer: Wayne Westerberg

Question: How does Krakauer structure the narrative chapters, subverting strict chronological order?

Answer: Through non-linear storytelling using epigraphs and flashbacks

Question: What physical item does Ron Franz teach Chris how to craft before they part ways?

Answer: A leather belt

Question: What was the primary profession of Walt McCandless, Chris's father?

Answer: An aerospace engineer for NASA

Question: What devastating family secret does Chris discover during his cross-country trip after graduating college?

Answer: His father's bigamy and double life

Question: What tone does Krakauer establish in the opening chapters regarding McCandless's fate?

Answer: Objective yet elegiac and cautionary

Question: Why does Chris abandon his Datsun instead of trying to tow it out of the wash?

Answer: The engine was damaged and the battery was dead.

Question: What river does Chris attempt to canoe down toward the Gulf of California?

Answer: The Colorado River

Question: What rhetorical purpose do the epigraphs at the start of each chapter serve?

Answer: They contextualize themes and parallel Chris's romantic ideals.

Question: What nickname do the grain elevator workers in Carthage use for Chris?

Answer: Alex

Question: What major ideological conflict defines the relationship between Chris and his father?

Answer: Materialistic ambition versus absolute spiritual purity

Question: Which historical young wanderers does Krakauer compare Chris to, noting similar tragic ideals?

Answer: Everett Ruess and Carl McCunn

Question: In Chapter 8, how do outside readers react to Outside magazine's article about Chris?

Answer: Many condemned him as reckless, arrogant, and unprepared.

Question: What item does Wayne Westerberg give Chris when he is arrested in El Segundo?

Answer: Money for a plane ticket

Question: What does Chris burn in the desert to symbolically sever ties with his past?

Answer: His remaining cash

Question: How does McCandless fund his initial travels after leaving Atlanta?

Answer: With personal savings and money earned working for Westerberg.

Question: What primary psychological trait does Krakauer suggest Chris shared with many doomed adventurers?

Answer: Hubris and uncompromising idealism

Question: What did Ron Franz ask Chris when they were driving to Colorado together?

Answer: He asks Chris to be his adopted grandson.

Question: What is the significance of the Stampede Trail in McCandless's journey?

Answer: It is the remote Alaskan route where he ultimately finds the abandoned bus.

Question: How does Krakauer establish ethos when analyzing McCandless's personality?

Answer: By sharing his own youthful climbing experiences in Alaska.

Question: What does Chris symbolize when he adopts the name Alexander Supertramp?

Answer: A complete spiritual rebirth and rejection of his bourgeois identity

Question: What genre convention does Krakauer break by inserting his own biography into the narrative?

Answer: Pure third-person objective journalism by introducing memoir elements

Question: Which philosopher's concept of civil disobedience resonates strongly with Chris's worldview?

Answer: Henry David Thoreau

Question: Why did Chris resent his parents' offer to buy him a new car after graduation?

Answer: He viewed it as an attempt to buy his affection and control him.

Question: What physical discomfort plagued Chris constantly during his time hitchhiking?

Answer: Foot blisters and general exhaustion

Question: What industry employs Wayne Westerberg in Carthage?

Answer: Grain elevator operations

Question: What does Krakauer imply about society's judgment of Chris versus his own perspective?

Answer: Society sees foolishness, while Krakauer sees a complex, driven idealist.

Question: What role does nature play as a literary force in Krakauer's narrative?

Answer: An indifferent, sublime force that tests human limitations.

Question: What specific book by Jack London deeply captures McCandless's romanticized view of the wild?

Answer: The Call of the Wild