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Dysfunctional Families In Into The Wild, By Jon Krakauer

Decent Essays

Dysfunctional Families The novel Into the Wild is a true story about Christopher McCandless narrated by the author Jon Krakauer. Krakauer focuses on revealing the journey taken by Christopher McCandless, but more importantly the development of McCandless’ psychological behavior. After finishing high school, McCandless single-handedly takes a road trip alone, where he discovers that his father has a second family. Keeping this secret away from Chris only angered him as he felt remarkably betrayed from his father. Additionally, Chris’ parents were very authoritative, oppressive, and irrational. At the age of twenty-four McCandless decides to run away and never contact his sister or parents again. Christopher embarks on a new journey, meets …show more content…

Children become aware that their feelings and desires are essential and must be accounted for. Growing up in a supportive environment enables children to form open and trusting relationships with their parents. However, sometimes parents fail to meet emotional or physical needs of their children. Through the failure of meeting the child’s need, eventually, leads to a more dysfunctional relationship. A dysfunctional family is where “the one in which the authority line between the parents and children is blurry,” (Keylon) usually occurring because of failed communication. Authoritarian parents are one of the more common factors for the existence of dysfunctional families. These type of parents “believe that children are, by nature, strong-willed and self-indulgent” (Darling). Authoritarians’ strictly follow their beliefs which can range from political, economic, personal, or religious. Therefore, these children are held to a much higher standard due to their parents’ level of strictness. Nothing less is allowed from the children. These authoritative parents tend to listen to their children’s arguments, but never change their minds. Additionally, the parents dominate and make decisions for the children (Benton). These children are mentally abused because of the lack of communication and emotional support. The emotional needs tend to shift moreover to the parents …show more content…

Authoritarian parents use criticism to enforce their control and minimize their encouragement. Life was not easy for Walter McCandless because his family was economically unstable. During his time in high school, Walt won an academic scholarship to Colorado State University, held part-time jobs, and played in a professional musical band. Eventually, Walter McCandless became an employee at NASA and held a high position for them. Walter became very successful and wanted the same for Chris. Walt criticized Chris in order for him to reach his maximum potential. When the discussion of college came up, Walt said: “Go to college, get a law degree, and then you’ll be able to have a real impact” (Krakauer 79). Giving constructive criticism, Walter displays how important it is to achieve a college and the symbolism it holds for the family. Eventually, Chris would arrive home with higher grades. The criticism allowed Chris to become an overachiever and gave him admissions to Emory college. The criticism plays an effective role because it pushed Chris to be the best version of himself academically. Without this method of parenting, Chris would continue to be a lackadaisical student and carried a lot of miss opportunities. However, Chris being the perfectionist he was, found that his father started to become frustrating and could not take it anymore. To counter the level of stress bestowed upon Chris, this

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