I went to see the movie Into the Wild. The movie was very moving. I found one quote very interesting. This occurred when Alexander Supertramp explained the purpose of his journey by summarizing Thoreau: “More than love, peace, money, power, friendship, or compassion…give me truth”. This desire for truth was the motivation behind him setting out on his pilgrimage. Although he could not find a specific religion, he believed in a God of sorts. Chris McCandless was looking for spiritual enlightenment in a manner of speaking. He essentially went on a religious pilgrimage, not to a place; but to truth.
This is interesting in comparison with tribal society and culture. The tribal societies generally use pilgrimage in rights of passage or for religious reasons, such as truth or enlightenment. These pilgrimages are much different than that of Supertramp’s. Supertramp’s pilgrimage was strictly personal voyage that had little to do with the culture in which he lived, except escaping it to find the true meaning of life.
The pilgrimage made by Supertramp was in actuality McCandless running from problems, primarily familial. The main problem, as portrayed by the movie, was the fake life he grew up in because of his parents’ lies. This drove his search for truth, which he unfortunately thought was a journey to be taken alone. He learned at the end of the movie that true happiness can not be found in truth alone.
Supertramp was, in looking for truth, searching for something that would complete him and make him happy. It was unfortunate that he did not realize until his death that the true reason he lacked happiness was because he was lacking any human compassion. It was interesting to see the role that compassion and love did not play in his pilgrimage in contrast to the compassion in tribal pilgrimages. Normally after coming back from a pilgrimage, especially that of coming to age, a tribal person has proven themselves to be fit for marriage. In this way the tribal person receives the compassion after they have achieved their enlightenment; perhaps had Chris McCandless made it back out of Alaska he would have found compassion and love in people as strongly as he had found it in nature.
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2 comments:
Joanna Andrusko
I saw the movie and read the book as well and out of everything I have ever read that book touched my soul the most. I recommend it to absolutely everyone. I wanted to comment on the statement about Chris discovering that truth alone would not lead to happiness. In the book when he is reading Tolstoy's Family and Happiness he realizes that he is ready to return to society and share his truth with societies. It seems the final tragedy that despite coming to this realization he is not able to reunite with his family, including the family he made along the road. I think one of the things that fascinated me so much about this book is that it was a modern-day adventure. Exploring in the 20th century. We always consider the wilderness obsolete and useless, something to be conquered and controlled and it was consoling to see a young man only about 15 years older than us that found the sacred so abundantly in the wild. Who not only appreciated the wild but felt closest to God in it. What is the word we learned, re-de-mystification? or something? The whole book, and the movie for that matter, above everything I felt, seem to be a love song to the American wild. Its beauties and its wrath both equally respected and revered.
December 3, 2007 7:25 PM
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