Daniel Castaneda

Professor Intawiwat UWRT-1102

Rough Draft
9 December, 2015
Deviating From the Norm
There are many people out there in our everyday lives that like to seek an adventure.
Only a handful of them manage to go to the extreme, people like Chris McCandless. His decision
to live in the wilderness captured the attention of the people that crossed his path. Readers also
took an interest to Chriss actions that drove him to take on this treacherous journey. Many
people considered Chriss actions as reckless, in which Chris was quick to stand his ground.
By comparing Chris to the rest of society, there is a chance that Chriss reckless actions may not
have been so reckless after all.
Throughout Chriss life, everything seemed to go well for him. It was after his college
graduation when things appeared odd. He donated all his money to charity and left without
coming into contact with his parents (Krakauer). He left his parents worried for his whereabouts,
leaving them in a state of depression. During Chriss journey, he met many people who have
come to admire his intelligence and personality, but not his decision to journey to Alaska. People
like Ronald Franz tried to talk him out of it and to simply live a normal life along with the rules
of society, but without success. Chris challenged their beliefs and left them doubting their own
way of living. Controversial topics arose once he was pronounced dead, leaving people to
question whether Chris was actually as intelligent as people said he was.

Although people tried to help Chris, they could not grasp the idea of why Chris did what
he did. The most likely reason is because they developed a fixed mindset, where one tends to
avoid challenges and stay wherever they feel most comfortable (Briceo). They are accustomed
to how society functions and its rules, so they tend to stick to it. Chris developed the other type
of mindset, known as a growth mindset, where those are open to new challenges and face those
challenges head on. According to the talk, Briceo said Only by achieving a growth mindset can
one call themselves successful. That being said, success will differ between both mindsets,
since they have different perspectives of what they define to be successful. While people in
society may consider their life trapped within society a success, Chris might consider his journey
to Alaska a success, even though it lead to his death.
Even though Chriss actions were rare, there are other instances of where people wanted
to escape societys norms and become independent just like Chris. For example in the book The
Awakening, the main character Edna Pontellier did not wish to live in a world where women had
to play the domestic mother role. Her independence and desire to escape reality lead to her
death, similarly to Chris (Chopin). Many mothers throughout that book thought of Edna as odd,
but they could not see Ednas real intentions. Both Edna and Chris had reasons of doing what
they did, but not many seemed to comprehend the reason why or even attempted to listen. Both
were judged simply because they went against the path that many seemed to follow because it
seemed right for them. It is almost like those people around them do not make their own
decisions, but rather have to follow the decisions set for them due to how society functions. If
one alters that process, they are automatically deemed as reckless or as a menace to society.
According to a study, norm violations tend to magnify something known as the Devil Effect
(Gibson). Although this was a study on physical attractiveness, it still demonstrated how if one

goes against the group, it changes how others perceive that person. Since one person is the oddball out, the others began developing a group-think mentality, making their beliefs stronger.
Whether it is about beauty whether it is or taking a journey to discover oneself, like-minded
people will continue to deem those against their mentality as unfit.
Throughout society, many people believed that a successful life means getting a stable
job, having some sort of impact on the world, and having kids so that they also have a chance
towards success. During an experiment performed, they found out that the more one isolates
themselves from the social norms, the less their self-image will be worth (Interis). Peoples
desire to maintain their reputation leads them to certain behaviors that later leads them to norms.
Chris has a completely different standpoint to this, since his self image is high and he decided
to isolate himself from the social norms. At the same time, it does not stop others from judging
his own self-worth, since they think that he should not be feeling that way; that the right way is
the way that those people within society were living.
Many people dont stop and tend to think about Chriss past experiences or about his
mental process that lead him to embark on his journey. There must have been a valid reason from
his sudden disappearance from society and living in isolation. Since Chris did not want to reveal
the whole truth, then Carine did the favor for us. As Chriss sister, she knows exactly why Chris
took these decisions and the types of family dysfunctions there were (McCandless).