Skip to main content

Who did Chris meet in the book Into the Wild?

Chris McCandless met all kinds of people during his months wandering the country.  There are simply too many to list, but I can help list and briefly explain some of the more prominent figures that Krakauer mentions.  


Jim Gallien.  Jim is interesting, because of how Krakauer chose to introduce him to the reader.  Jim is the first person that McCandless meets in the story, but Jim is also the last person to see McCandless alive.  Krakauer begins the story only a few months before McCandless is found dead, and then Krakauer flashes back.  Jim Gallien picked McCandless up in his truck and drove him to the start of the Stampede Trail.  


Ronald Franz.  Franz was an old man living out near the Salton Sea in southeast California.  He took McCandless under his wing for a few weeks and tried to convince McCandless to do something with his life.  The two men grew quite close and McCandless encouraged Franz to give up his sedentary life.  


Wayne Westerburg.  Westerburg owned a grain elevator in Carthage, South Dakota.  He hired McCandless as a worker, and McCandless returned to him for work on multiple occasions.  While in Carthage, McCandless also met Mary Westerburg (Wayne's mother) and Gail Borah (Wayne's girlfriend). 


George Dreeszen and Lori Zarza.  Both were assistant managers at the McDonald's where McCandless had a job for a bit in Bullhead City. 


Charlie.  An old man that gave McCandless a mobile home to live in while in Bullhead City.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A man has a garden measuring 84 meters by 56 meters. He divides it into the minimum number of square plots. What is the length of the square plots?

We wish to divide this man's garden into the minimum number of square plots possible. A square has all four sides with the same length.Our garden is a rectangle, so the answer is clearly not 1 square plot. If we choose the wrong length for our squares, we may end up with missing holes or we may not be able to fit our squares inside the garden. So we have 84 meters in one direction and 56 meters in the other direction. When we start dividing the garden in square plots, we are "filling" those lengths in their respective directions. At each direction, there must be an integer number of squares (otherwise, we get holes or we leave the garden), so that all the square plots fill up the garden nicely. Thus, our job here is to find the greatest common divisor of 84 and 56. For this, we prime factor both of them: `56 = 2*2*2*7` `84 = 2*2*3*7` We can see that the prime factors and multiplicities in common are `2*2*7 = 28` . This is the desired length of the square plots. If you wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

What warning does Chuchundra issue to Rikki?

Chuchundra, the sniveling, fearful muskrat who creeps around walls because he is too terrified to go into the center of a room, meets Rikki in the middle of the night. He insults Rikki by begging him not to kill him. He then insults him by suggesting that Nag might mistake Chuchundra for Rikki. He says, "Those who kill snakes get killed by snakes."  He issues this warning to Rikki not to help keep Rikki safe but as a way of explaining why Rikki's presence gives him, Chuchundra, more reason to fear.  Chuchundra starts to tell Rikki what Chua the rat told him--but breaks it off when he realizes he might be overheard by Nag. He says, "Nag is everywhere, Rikki-Tikki." Rikki threatens to bite Chuchundra to get him to talk. Even then, Chuchundra won't overtly reveal any information. But he does say, "Can't you hear, Rikki-Tikki?" This is enough of a clue for the clever mongoose. He listens carefully and can just make out the "faintest scratch-s...
Post a Comment
Read more