Anti Modernism PDF

A FINAL PROJECT
BACKPACKING LIFE AS A PROTEST AGAINST

MODERN LIFE IN THE NOVEL “INTO THE WILD”
Submitted by
Chairul Umar Sin
2250405072
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
LANGUAGES AND ARTS FACULTY
SEMARANG STATE UNIVERSITY
2010
PAGE OF APPROVAL
This final project has been approved by the board of examiners of the English
Department of language and arts faculty of Semarang State University (UNNES)
on January 2010.
Board of Examiners
Chairman:
Prof. Dr. Rustono, M.Hum.
NIP. 195801271983031003
Secretary:
Drs. H. Suprapto, M.Hum..
NIP. 195311291982031002
First Examiner:
Maria Yohana.A.W. S.S., M.Si.
NIP. 197405162001122001
Second Examiner/ second adviser:

Drs.Joko Sutopo, M.Si
NIP. 195403261986011001
Third Examiner/ first adviser:

Dra.Puji. Rahayu,H. M.Hum.
NIP. 196610201997022001
Approved by,
The Dean of Languages and Arts Faculty
Prof. Dr. Rustono, M. Hum

NIP. 195801271983031003
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MOTTO and DEDICATION
¾ How important it is in life not necessarily to be strong... but to feel strong.

(Christopher McCandless)
¾ Only by travelling, we can understand what life is, both mentally or
physically.
(Chairul Umar Sin)
¾ World is a tragedy to they who think it, and comedy to whom understand
(Anonymous)
To:
My beloved parents ever, Mom and
Dad, and my siblings for their love,
support, trust and ‘investation’ of
everything on me.
My beloved friends, Candika, Geng
Lucu, and Pegugu, for their sharing
how to view life in different ways and
all of my dearest mates in ’05 B
Regulars.
My dearest overseas friends, Kyra
Schneider, Sara Skriver, Dominika
Sotys, Panos Psychovsky, Leona
black, Rebbeca Thomas, Jessica
Daeng Aziz for their sharing ideas
and support in finishing this final
project
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The first and foremost, I wishes to take the opportunity to express my greatest
prayer and gratitude to Allah SWT the Almighty for the blessings, grace, love,
and strength leading to the completion of this final project.
My deepest and sincere appreciation goes to Dra. Rahayu Puji H, M. Hum.
as the first advisor who has given me the best idea and guidance during the
advisory sessions of this final project. And I would present the gratitude to the
second advisor, Drs. Joko Sutopo, M.Si. for his assistance and correction during
the writing.
Also, I would like to thank Prof. Dr. Rustono, M. Hum. and Drs.
H.Suprapto, M. Hum. respectively as the chairperson and the secretary of the
board of examination as well as the team of examiners, especially the first
examiner, Maria Yohana.A.W. S.S., M.Si who examined this final project to be a
better writing.
Furthermore, my special thanks are also forwarded to my beloved mom and
dad, both of my sisters, and my little brother, for their affection, encouragement,
attention, and trust from the beginning to the finishing of my final project. Lots of
love and thanks are also delivered to all my friends that always support and share
their ideas. Finally, I wish this study could bring benefit to all.
Semarang, January 2010
Chairul Umar Sin
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ABSTRACT
Chairul Umar Sin. 2010. Backpacking life as a protest against modern life in
the novel “Into the Wild”. Final Project, English Departement, Faculty of Arts
and Languages, Semarang State University. 1st advisor: Dra. Rahayu Puji H,
M. Hum. 2nd advisor: Drs. Joko Sutopo, M.Si
Key Words: modern life, backpacking, and society

The final project intended to analyze backpackers protest against of modern life
and modern society in the Into the Wild’s novel. The final project aimed to answer
several problems in the final project, they are: the implementations of
backpacking in the story, modern policy which are protested through backpacking
and how the story does represents backpacking.
The object of this study was backpackers in the Into the Wild’s novel. I
used descriptive qualitative analysis. The data of the study are in the form of
words, phrases, sentences, and dialogues. I collected the data in the forms of
sentences by reading the novel, analyzing data, and then reporting data. To
analyze all questions, I used psychological and sociological approach. I also used
deconstruction to deconstruct and to view the story in another way.
Result after several findings. First, the implementations of backpacking in

this story are consists of nomadic movement, long length of trip and simple living.
Second, the backpackers in this story showed his protest against modern policies,
such as: the power of money, the rules that imprisoned human, domination of time
over human and considered modern society as a “plastic” society by living as
backpackers do. The last but not the least, is how the story represents backpacking
which is described as a world of freedom, adventurous of life and as a lifestyle by
some people.
On the basis of conclusions, several suggestions can be offered. First, by
describing backpacking in this story, it can give a view that backpackers are not
just drifters who wandering everywhere but people who live in simply life where
modern people cannot live in it. Second, things in modern life now is changed
subconsciously that can destroy humanity insensibly. Thus it is expected that we
can only accept the good one. The last, by this regularity of life, we cannot just
flowing and stay on the line but also have a critical thought like Chris, to think
outside the line and be skeptical in everything.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
APPROVAL ............................................................................................... ii
MOTTO and DEDICATION ..................................................................... iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ......................................................................... iv
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................... v
TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................... vi
CHAPTER
I INTRODUCTION .............................................................................. 1
1.1 General Background of the Study ........................................................ 1
1.2 Reasons for Choosing the Topic .......................................................... 6
1.3 Statements of the Problem ................................................................... 8
1.4 Objectives of the Study ....................................................................... 8
1.5 Significance of the Study .................................................................... 9
1.6 Outline of the Study ............................................................................ 9
II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE ........................................ 10
2.1 Term of Backpacking ............................................................................ 10
2.2 2.2 Backpacking History........................................................................ 12
2.3 Motivation of Backpacking ..................................................................... 19
2.4 Backpacking today .................................................................................. 21
2.5 About the Novel ..................................................................................... 23
2.6 About the movie......................................................................................... 23
2.7 Modern life ............................................................................................. 23
2.5 Deconstruction ........................................................................................ 24
III METHOD OF INVESTIGATION ....................................................... 25
3.1 The Object of Study ............................................................................. 25
3.2 Types of Data ........................................................................................ 25
3.4 Procedures in Analyzing Data ............................................................... 26
3.5 Technique of Reporting the Data Analysis............................................. 27
IV RESULT OF STUDY ......................................................................... 29
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4.1 Summary of Into the Wild’s novel ........................................................... 29
4.2 Analysis ................................................................................................. 31
4.2.1 The implementation of backpacking life in Into the Wild’s novel ......... 31
4.2.1.1 Nomadic movement.………………………………………………….. 31
4.2.1.2 Long length of trip…………………………………………………….. 34
4.2.1.3 Simple Life……………………………………………………………. 36
4.2.2 Modern policy which is protested through backpacking in the “Into the
Wild”‘s novel ...................................................................................... 38
4.2.2.1 The rise of money as a power………………………………………….. 38
4.2.2.2 The rules that imprisoned human’s life……………………………….. 39
4.2.2.3 The domination of time over human…………………………………... 41
4.2.2.4 The “Plastic” Society………………………………………………….. 43
4.2.3 How does the story represent backpacking………………………………. 44
4.2.3.1 The World of freedom…………………………………………………. 44
4.2.3.2 The Adventurous life………………………………………………….. 45
V CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS .............................................. 46

5.1 Conclusions ........................................................................................... 46
5.2 Suggestions ........................................................................................... 47
VI BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................. 49
VII APPENDICES ..................................................................................... 51
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1 General Background of the Study
Modern society has created a new world for us, world that serves well.
Modern society offers so much facilities and physical comforts like car, train
and plane for transportation at one end and computer technology for
information exchange and automation on the other. To add the world even
smaller we have revolutionary information technology. It has helped people in
exchanging information from one corner of world to another just in minute via
internet. This has eliminated the need to travel. One can shop without visiting
store or mall. The same technology provides so many option for enhance
entertainment for recreation.
On the other hand, just like a coin which has two faces, besides offers us a
lot of better facilities in our life, modern life gives us new aspects of life they
are: bureaucracy, disenchantment of the world, rationalization, secularization,
individualism, universalism, chaos, mass society, industrial society,
democrationism, hierarchical organization and so on.
Modern society has brought new definition about time, rules, money and
bureaucracy in our life. In our modern life, time is the most important thing.
Time is a limitation or a border of life’s schedule for people (Stewart, 2008,
1). For rules, people still wondering although law and legal system is getting
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well patterned but we still have unsolvable problems such as corruption,
inequality of life, injustice of laws and etc.
Money has a very important role in our life: we live in a world of
materialist values, where ownership of the most expensive objects seems a
worthy goal. Society dictates that a person’s worth can be judged by how
much money they earn. Money has unfortunately become an essential part of
life. Most of us have lost the ability to live by our own power, we need to
work hard to earn money, which is become essential for us. Thus, because
something is essential to survive, it needs to be the main focus of life.
There is a bureaucracy in the modern society. One cannot exist in a society
without bureaucracy; there are no other possible alternatives. This is the way
of the world modern operates, particularly in the West, and those who born
into it are bound by it. This is why Max Weber referred it as an “iron cage”.
Bureaucracy is applicable to any task or organization to handle it
administratively. It is a way of getting done with a high degree of efficiency.
Because there are written rules, orders and rankings, it is also the most rational
means of controlling people. But the unintended consequence is that, once in
motion, bureaucracy cannot be destroyed. Weber pointed out its dominance,
threat to individual freedom and the spread of rationalism into every
institution that it becomes a trap where, when in it, there would be no escape-
hence, the “iron cage” of rationality (Weber, 109).
All the things above make people live like a bird in the golden cage. It
gives us good facilities but not serves them well or makes them happy. As
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time goes by, people found out that travel or tourism can be an “escape” from
the golden cage. In the eyes of some commentators (e.g. MacCannell, 1976),
the tourism has become an icon of the restlessness and the alienation of
modern life. The search for meaning in modern societies encourages
pilgrimage to the sites of differentiation created by modernity and a search for
the ‘primitive’ and pre-modern cultures it has displaced (MacCannell, 1992a).
The disappearance of pre-modern cultures makes them all the more attractive
as sites of tourism consumption and distinction – a chance to see the past
before it disappears. Globalization not only increases the speed at which
cultures are marginalized, but also increases the speed with which the tourist
can travel to see them. The presence of tourists around the globe is not only a
sign of the progress of globalization, it is also an integral part of the
globalization process. The presence of tourists ties more and more places into
the global economy and modern communication networks. Tourists make the
places they visit increasingly like home, which stimulates their restless search
for difference still further (de Botton, 2002).
According to James Clifford (1997: 1), travel is arguably an integral part
of the postmodern ‘new world order of mobility’. Society as a whole is
becoming more restless and mobile, in contrast to the relatively rigid patterns
of modernity. One of the cultural symbols of this increasingly mobile world is
the backpacker. Backpackers are found in every corner of the globe, from
remote villages in the Hindu Kush to the centers of London or Paris. They
carry with them not only the emblematic physical baggage that gives them
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their name, but their cultural baggage as well. Their path is scattered with the
trappings of the backpacker culture – banana pancakes, bars with ‘video
nights’ and cheap hostels (Iyer, 1988).
According to some authors (e.g. Westerhausen, 2002) growing numbers of
people who do travelling are reacting to the alienation of modern society by
adopting the lifestyle of the backpacker. Their nomadic existence is supported
by the increasing ease of international travel, a growing network of budget
hostels and travel companies, and the increasing flexibility of life path and
work.
The sense of freedom offered by backpacking may well be one of its major
attractions. As Binder and Welk show in their contributions to this volume, the
ability to decide one’s own itinerary, to change travel plans at will and not to
be weighed down by cultural or physical baggage are features of travel
important to backpackers. The problem is, of course, that this freedom also
has its own constraints, such as a lack of time or money, or the sheer physical
impracticality of visiting all the sites one wants to see. The backpacker’s
freedom to travel also becomes a freedom to change the very places that they
travel to see, as their own travel (which every people has their own
destination, such as: Asian people want to go to Europe, and European eager
to visit exotic places, which most of them are in Asia) begins to impact on the
‘unchanged’ or ‘authentic’ cultures they want to visit. The backpacker is
therefore forced into adopting a nomadic style of travel in an attempt to avoid
other travelers – a strategy that is bound to fail, given the propensity of the
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Lonely Planet and other guide books to open up new destinations to hordes of
other travelers also seeking to escape from each other. Not surprisingly, what
many backpackers regard as an ‘authentic’ destination is one untouched by
other tourists (Timmermans, 2002).
Backpackers therefore seem to be driven into the far corners of the globe
by the ‘experience hunger’ of modern society (de Cauter, 1995), which also
forces them into becoming nomadic. Once they have consumed the
experiences offered by one place, they need to move on to find new ones. Just
like traditional nomadic people, the global nomad constantly moves from
place to place
Backpacking life itself is a nomadic life. It offers people unlimited
freedom and adventure, life without time limitation and rules. For example:
we do not have to wake up in early morning just to go to school or school, we
do not have a deadline for our job, in simple word “schedule is not important
anymore” (anonymous).
The interpretation of the travel style by Pearce (1990) introduced the term
‘backpacker’ into the academic literature. Pearce’s analysis is primarily
concerned with motivational aspects, particularly related to extending one’s
education: travel as escape from pressing life choices, and ‘occasional work’
to extend travel time. Most significantly, Pearce identifies a fourth theme
related to the emergence of a subculture focused on the pursuit of health and
outdoor activities
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Form of dissatisfaction or protest against modern society not only exist in
real life but also emerges in literary works. They are portrayed in literary
works which can notice the social problem. The various personalities on every
character in every literary works can be referred to as a form of the author
expression of his thought or ideas which is reflection in real life.
As a student of English Literature, I want to discuss and analyze about the
relationship between backpacking life and modern society. The reason why I
discuss the relationship is because of the dissatisfaction people toward modern
society and backpacking life which become an “escape “of some people in this
era.
The research about backpacking is conducted, because not only to see and
know how backpacking life it is, but also to understand message which is
implied in backpacking life and the relationship to modern society.
1.2 Reasons for Choosing the Topic
In this modern life, our world is a heaven for us; people live and being served
like a king. Technology has answered any answers. Anything what they want,
whenever they want to, can be prepared as fast as possible. But they have to
work hard as a consequence.
They have to work by schedule; each of their minute is accounted to
decide their next life. But human’s mind is never satisfied. The mind is never
satisfied with the object immediately before it, but is always breaking away
from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity. The
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natural flights of the human are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope
to hope. (Samuel Johnson) As they feel sufficed as greater they feel
uncomfortable. In this novel one of the backpackers, the main character John
McCandless, because of unharmonious and neglecting parents, hated why
modern society always hurt each other, and wonder why life is full of falsity.
So by backpacking, he decided to run from modern life. He wanted to reach
his ultimate goal: live alone in Alaska. Like Lord Byron poem’s said” There is
a pleasure in the pathless woods; There is a rapture on the lonely shore;
There is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar: I
love man the less, But nature more…”
The first reason I choose this topic is because backpacking is a new
traveling genre which well known in Europe, America including Asia itself.
While traveling with modern touch such as; Luxurious hotels, traveling
wherever and whenever they want by plane and another modern
transportation, backpacking offer its natural and originality of traveling and
adventure has been flourishing in Western. Many of them are students and
some people who want to spend their holiday and want to travel around the
world. While in other side, Backpacking is a controversial subject: while often
imagining themselves as the ‘real’ travellers as against the conventional
tourists (e.g. Uriely et al., 2002; Welk), backpackers are often condemned for
their appearance, conduct – especially sexual freedom and use of drugs –
superficiality, stinginess and seclusion in backpacker enclaves

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Second, the main character of this movie showed his protest against
modern live by backpacking, simple living without any limitation of time and
rule. He did not want to live in “golden cage” and falsity of life that he had
live. He realized the modern and society had not answered what people want,
world still full of inequality and paradox thing, such as; we can eat and get
what we want but we can find hunger and starvation in Sudan and Ethiopia,
problems of race and ethnicity which still arise in each country, and etc.
Third, the story of John McCandless spent his rest of life into the wild,
sent all of his saving of life to Oxfam; which suppose to be his fund of
university, wandering everywhere without money is based on true story,
which has published on the book “into the wild” (1996) by John Krakauer also
the movie “into the wild” (1997) directed by Sean Penn.
For all those reason, I regard this is an interesting and reasonable theme to
be analyzed.
1.3 Statements of the Problem
There are some questions that would be answered in this final project, those
question are;
1. How is the implementation of backpacking life in the story?
2. What modern policy is protested through backpacking in the story?
3. How does the story represent backpacking?
4.
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1.4 Objective of the Study
In this paper, the objective of the study is to understand backpacking life and
to give an image to the reader in what modern policy they quarreled on
especially in this paradox and inequality of life.
1.5 Significance of Study
By analyzing this novel the writer hopes to give the whole description about
backpacking life and modern life, furthermore, writer would like to provide
some data and materials that can be conducted in the next research.
1.6 Outline of the Study
The study is divided into several chapters. Chapter I is introduction which
contains background of the study, reason for choosing the topic, statements of
the problem, significance of the study, limitation of research and outline of the
study.
Chapter two is review of related literature, which presents the definition of
backpacking term, Backpacking history, Backpacking today, about into the
wild novel, about the book, modern life definition and some research methods
which will be used in this research.
The next chapter is chapter three, method of investigation. It discusses the
object if the study, role of the researcher, types of data, procedure of collecting
data and some procedures of analyzing data.

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Chapter four contains the result of the analyzing about general findings,
the result and the discussion.
The last chapter is chapter five presets conclusion, followed by
bibliography and the appendixes.

CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
2.1 The terms of Backpacking
Backpacking is a term that has historically been used to denote a form of
low-cost, independent international travel. (Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). The
factors that traditionally differentiate backpacking from other forms of tourism
are; they are not limited to the following; use of public transport, preference of
youth and cheap hostels to traditional hostels, length of the trip longer than
conventional vacations, use of a backpack and an interest meeting local people as
well as seeing the sights are some of the motivation of the backpacking itself. The
backpacker infrastructure mainly formed by the Lonely Planet guidebook is a
guarantee that you will meet up with other people while travelling individually.
‘The good thing about backpacking is: if you arrive in a backpacker hostel
everybody is talking to everybody – there are no barriers. You instantly talk to
everybody everywhere and everybody is giving advice because there is that bond
between backpackers (Doris, 23).
The definition of a backpacker has evolved as travelers from different
cultures and regions participate and will continue to do so, preventing an air tight
definition. Backpackers definitely were the people who moved around a lot to
meet locals and especially, some virgin and untouched places and do leave
enough hints for having influenced the backpacking tradition, recent research has
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found that, “ backpackers constituted a heterogeneous group with respect to the
diversity of rationales and meanings attached to their travel experiences… . They
also displayed a common commitment to non institutionalized form of a travel,
which was central to their self identification as backpackers” (Adkins, Barbara;
Eryn Grant (2007-08). "Backpackers as a Community of Strangers: The
Interaction Order of an Online Backpacker Notice Board" (PDF). Qualitative
Sociology Review 3).
There is some backpacking terms which people classify;
a) Backpacking (wilderness), hiking and overnight camping in the wilderness
with supplies carried in a backpack for the entire duration of the trip, as
opposed to day hiking or car camping. We will meet this description
practically in the real story of the main character of the novel Into the Wild
itself, John McCandless. In backpacking (wilderness) a backpacker packs
all of his or her gear into a backpack. This gear must include food, water,
and shelter, or the means to obtain them, but very little else, and often in a
more compact and simpler form than one would use for stationary
camping. A backpacking trip must include at least one overnight stay in
the wilderness (otherwise it is a day hike). Many backpacking trips last
just a weekend (one or two nights), but long-distance expeditions may last
weeks or months, sometimes aided by planned food and supply drops.
Backpacking camps are more spartan than ordinary camps. In areas that
experience a regular traffic of backpackers, a hike-in camp might have a
fire ring and a small wooden bulletin board with a map and some warning
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or information signs. Many hike-in camps are no more than level patches
of ground without scrub or underbrush. In very remote areas, established
camps do not exist at all, and travelers must choose appropriate camps
themselves. In some places, backpackers have access to lodging that is
more substantial than a tent. In the more remote parts of Great Britain,
both exist to provide simple (free) accommodation for backpackers.
Another example is the High Sierra Camps in Yosemite National Park.
Mountain huts provide similar accommodation in other countries, so
being a member of a mountain hut organization is advantageous (perhaps
required) to make use of their facilities. On other trails (e.g. the
Appalachian Trail) there are somewhat more established shelters of a sort
that offer a place for weary hikers to spend the night without needing to set
up a tent. Most backpackers purposely try to avoid impacting on the land
through which they travel. This includes following established trails as
much as possible, not removing anything, and not leaving residue in the
backcountry. The Leave No Trace movement offers a set of guidelines for
low-impact backpacking ("Leave nothing but footprints. Take nothing but
photos. Kill nothing but time. Keep nothing but memories").
b) Backpacking (travel), it is similar to wilderness backpacking in that
personal belongings are also carried in a backpack for the duration of the
trip, they used to wandering places that less touristy, such as part of Asia,
Thailand, Indonesia, India, China and etc. Most of Backpackers, or
Backers, they usually called, are students who wants different vacation or
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before they entering university. It is a new phenomenon which has spread
all over the world.
c) Ultralight backpacking, backpacking while carrying very few or very
lightweight supplies.
2.2 The backpacking History
Backpacking a new shocking phenomenon in the world which appears in this era,
which all of the parts are system patterned, offers unlimited freedom and new
heaven for restless people, but before we discuss about backpacking furthermore
we will root the history of the term of backpacking to the travel’s term. Man has
been a traveler for a long time. As a matter of fact, human were nomadic when
they started. That was a way of life, more of a compulsion than a choice, even for
religious purpose.
Rahul Sankratayan was known as a great Sanskrit scholar, philosopher,
literator, linguist and erudite pundit but perhaps few know that he was the first
Indian writer to publish a book in Hindi on the art of travel (Ghummakar Shastra),
unraveling the phenomena seminally. Forever footloose, he was an indefatigable
wanderer, hungry to know about peoples and places, both in his homeland and
abroad. As a Himalayans, he traversed far and wide, deep into the remote valleys;
stayed in forlorn caves and rock-shelters, mingled with indigenous people —
Marcchayas and Sherpas — spoke in their lingo and danced their way. His
graphic account of Himalayan ethnography is mostly written in non-English
languages, not easily accessible. Rahul’s Himalayan travels came to a halt when
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he was rendered almost crippled due to frost bite, yet he passionately longed to
drink life to the lees. Sankratayan embodied in him the true spirit of a traveler —
‘it is not too late to seek a newer world’. (Sankratayan, R. (1959). Ghummakkar
Shastra (Hindi). Allahabad. Kitab Mahal).
Another Indian who stands out as a great travel enthusiast was a
missionary, Adi Shankracharya (800 CE) who virtually democratized travel.
Taking cue from Puranaic literature, in religious framework, he firmly established
the concept of pilgrimology what Indians practice in Tirthyatras. Over time, it
was developed into an institution, characterized by the notion of austerity,
humility, simplicity, hardship and penance with high regard to geo-piety and
topophilia (place attachment) where a pilgrim undertakes ‘inner’ as well as
physical journey to unfold the meaning of life. Hindu pilgrimages are
quintessentially community based, long-haul, monolithic, having specific code-of-
conduct, and marked by ‘road-culture’, that kept the entire nation on the move,
more for ‘self-spirituality’ than ‘aesthetic cosmopolitanism’. Hindus were
ordained to leave their homes for far flung peripheries, known as dhamas* to earn
divine merits or to attain moksha (salvation). They travelled on minimal support
services while many preferred to cross vast distances bare-footed, half-fed, and
barely clad and often with the sky as their roof. The mantra was: the harder you
work for, the better you gain. Pilgrims’ tales on return were narratives filled with
awe and wonder, mystery and mythologies — Himalayan wonder man Yeti, the
invisible elves and fairies of the Valley of Flowers, the thunderous waterfalls,
dramatic emergence of the Ganga from the glacier’s cow-mouth, strange ways of
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Bhotia tribals of Mana and the warm hospitality of Pandas. All this inspired
listeners by the fireside for a yatra next summer, after the harvest. (Return of the
Frugal Traveller: T. V. Singh, Tourism Recreation Research Vol. 31, No. 3, 2006)
The processes of modernization have eroded the ethos of archaic
pilgrimages as most of these sites were considered ‘markers’ of tourism
development. Mass tourism overwhelmed the character of many places beyond
recognition and to the detriment of pilgrimage-culture. Tourism literature is
replete with what bad tourism can do. The story of developed societies is not
much different from the developing nations, particularly Europe, where medieval
pilgrimages changed from spirituality to novelty and for bizarre touristic
experiences (Sumption 1975). In India a pilgrim increasingly exchanged character
with pleasure-seeking tourist when more tourists inroad religious landscape,
profaning the sublime and the sacred. Shrine resorts transformed to tourism,
blurring spirituality between religious and secular domains – ‘religion became just
another marketable commodity’ (Olsen 2003). Seeking spirituality became fad
and travellers’ native instinct gradually faded away with secular overtones, what
Solomon (1999) termed ‘Spiritual Promiscuity’. Lord Byron laments in Childe
Harold’s Pilgrimage, ‘from mighty wrongs to petty perfidy, have I not seen what
human things could do’. Gladstone (2005) in his recent book From Pilgrimage to
Package Tour elaborates on this subject more succinctly.
In pilgrimages we have almost lost a noble art of travel. Disgusted with
modern life and living that appeared too materialistic, empty and meaningless,
‘nomads’ from the affluent-west began searching for existential reality in the
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Orient and ‘exotic Other’. Cohen named them ‘drifters’, others called them
‘junkies’ and a few pronounced them ‘flower children’, euphemistically for their
atypical life-style. Finally, somewhere in the 1980s, they were seen as
independent travelers who loved freedom and serendipity, donning typical
backpack. They wore a sanguine attitude towards life and were eager to integrate
with local community; used accommodation owned by host society and made
efforts to consume locally produced commodities. They loved to be called a
traveler or a backpacker rather than tourist, though academics classed them
amongst ‘alternative tourists’. Wedded to principles of austerity and travel ethics;
oriented to self-development and acquisition of knowledge; parsimonious
backpackers are often considered as ‘secular pilgrims’.
Within a period of about 40 years, the backpacking phenomenon has
grown worldwide with major concentration in Asian countries, such as South East
Asia and Australasia besides South America. North America and Europe have the
lowest population of backpackers. Since they demand a different infrastructure,
their destinations have developed a distinct backpacker market.
Backpacking may be fringe economy but it helps destination communities
to sustain for all its indigenous touch that prevents leakages. Backpacking has
developed into an important socio-cultural and economic phenomenon around the
world. It needs to be examined more seriously than to be taken as ‘time bubble’.
Since conventional tourism has a tendency to pre-date benevolent
attributes of travel, backpacking could hardly remain untouched. Signs of distress
are discernible in the statements of backpacker-critics, who found that the scene
18
has lost its innocence; it is shaping into mass-backpackers market. That
backpackers’ culture has suffered a setback by creating a rift between ideology
and practice and those backpackers’ newly discovered peripheries have paved
way to mass tourism, it is getting more packaged than packaged tours. It promotes
ghettoish enclaves and that it is far from real travel; it is not what it used to be.
The other root is nomadic youth on pre modern west, Youth nomads, as Judith
Adler (1985) reminds us, has been a widespread phenomenon in the pre-modern
West. She argues that the lower-class tramp, wandering in quest of employment,
became the formative model or trope for the emergent modern middle-class youth
traveler; traveling for enjoyment and experiences. While some degree of historical
continuity thus apparently exists between the ‘tramping’ of the past and
contemporary backpacking, the emergence of the latter as a large-scale touristy
phenomenon is, in my view, related to some distinctive traits of modern Western
societies (Cohen, 1973) and the position of youth within them. These traits in turn
may have engendered the desire to adopt ‘tramping’ as a model for this mode of
travelling, which in its aims, style and consequences differs markedly from all
Western precedents. Chief among these traits was the widespread alienation of
Western youths from their societies of origin, especially in the United States and
Western Europe; which culminated during the 1960s, and led to the (failed)
‘student revolution’ and the various attempts to create alternative lifestyles. While
the extent of alienation may have receded to a significant extent towards the end
of the last century, the stresses and uncertainties of late modern life are certainly a
disorienting factor that induces young men and women to take time out (Elsrud,
19
1998) to gain a new perspective on their own life and future (Noy & Cohen,
forthcoming), while having a challenging but enjoyable time in the world of
others. I propose to call the earlier, alienated individuals roaming the world alone,
common in the 1960s and 1970s, ‘drifters’, and the more recent youth travelers,
following well-trodden paths in large numbers ‘backpackers’. If the model for the
drifter was the tramp, the drifter is the model for the backpacker; but I wish to
stress that this chronological division is not strict: the Vermassung of drifting had
started already in the 1970s (Cohen, 1973) and even today, individual drifters can
be found in remote localities as yet untouched by mainstream ‘backpacker’
tourism. The very remoteness of the drifters, indeed, appears to hide them from
the fieldworker studying backpackers on the more popular itineraries and
enclaves. My own conceptualization of the original ‘drifter’ was to a significant
extent influenced by a personal encounter in the later 1960s.
The ‘original drifter’ (Cohen, 1973) may have been an ideal to which many
youths were attracted, but only very few succeeded. Therefore at an early stage
the concept and suggested several sub-types of drifters had been qualified (Cohen,
1973: 100–101), emerging just as contemporary youth tourism became a mass
phenomenon; those who at present would be loosely called ‘backpackers’. It also
described the alternative tourism infrastructure of itineraries, transportation
services, accommodation and other facilities which had begun to emerge in
response to the growth of this kind of tourism (Cohen, 1973: 95–97).
However, it was not related with the early paper the concept of the drifter to
what has emerged as the dominant paradigm in tourism research from the mid-
20
1970s to the 1990s: MacCannell’s (1973, 1976) conceptualization of the tourist as
a secular pilgrim in quest of authenticity, which is in turn staged for them by their
obliging hosts. The phenomenology of tourist experiences (Cohen, 1979) that
drifters – assumed to be the most alienated kind of tourists – would tend toward
the most intensive types of experiences, and especially the ‘experimental’ or
‘existential’ ones, as they sought an alternative ‘elective centre’, which they could
substitute for that of their home society. The drifter would thus strive more than
the ordinary tourist to reach places and people that are ‘really’ authentic, and
would display considerable touristic angst that places or events that appear
authentic are in fact stage.
While there is no definitive answer as to the precise origin of backpacking,
its roots can be traced, at least partially, to the Hippie trail of the 1960s and 70s
(MacLean, Rory. "Dark Side of the Hippie Trail", The New Statesman) which
in turn followed sections of the old Silk Road. In fact, some backpackers today
seek to re-create that journey, albeit in a more comfortable manner, while
capitalizing on the current popularity of the green movement. Looking further
into history, Giovan Francesco Gemelli Careri has been cited by some as one of
the world's first backpackers.
Although the term ‘backpacker’ has been used in the travel literature since the
1970s, the backpacker phenomenon has only more recently been widely analyzed
by academic researchers. An analysis of the bibliography compiled by members
of the Association of Tourism and Leisure Education (ATLAS) Backpacker
Research Group (BRG) indicates that of 76 dated references relating to

21
backpacker and youth travel, only 11 were published before 1990. This was the
year in which the term ‘backpacker’ was first noted in the academic literature
(Pearce, 1990). The growing interest in the topic is underlined by the fact that the
ATLAS BRG alone now has more than 30 members in 11 countries.
At least until recently, much of the backpacker research has been undertaken
in countries where the impact of backpacking is particularly evident, notably in
South-East Asia, Australia and New Zealand (e.g. Elsrud, 1998;Hampton, 1998;
Murphy, 2001; Ross, 1997). A second factor influencing the geographical
distribution of backpacking studies has been the tendency for research to be
undertaken ‘on the road’, usually in the more popular backpacker destinations in
Asia and Australasia.
2.3 The motivation of Backpacking
People are drawn to backpacking primarily for recreation, to explore places that
they consider beautiful and fascinating, many of which cannot be accessed in any
other way. A backpacker can travel deeper into remote areas, away from people
and their effects, than a day-hiker can. However, backpacking presents more
advantages besides distance of travel. Many weekend trips cover routes that could
be hiked in a single day, but people choose to backpack them anyway, for the
experience of staying overnight.
These possibilities come with disadvantages. The weight of a pack, laden
with supplies and gear, forces traditional backpackers to travel more slowly than
day-hikers would, and it can become a nuisance and a distraction from enjoying
22
the scenery. In addition, camp chores (such as pitching camp, breaking camp, and
cooking) can easily consume several hours every day. However, with practice,
much of this downtime can be purged from the day.
Backpackers face many risks, including adverse weather, difficult terrain,
treacherous river crossings, and hungry or unpredictable animals (although the
perceived danger from wild animals usually greatly exceeds the true risk). They
are subject to illnesses, which run the gamut from simple dehydration to heat
exhaustion, hypothermia, altitude sickness, and physical injury. The remoteness
of backpacking locations exacerbates any mishap. However, these hazards do not
deter backpackers who are properly prepared. Some simply accept danger as a risk
that they must endure if they want to backpack; for others, the potential dangers
actually enhance the allure of the wilderness. (Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia).
2.4 Backpacking today
Technological changes and improvements have also contributed to changes in
backpacking. Traditionally backpackers did not travel with expensive electronic
equipment such as laptop computers, digital cameras and PDAs due to concerns
about theft, damage, and additional luggage weight. However, the desire to stay
connected coupled with trends in lightweight electronics have given rise to the
flashpacking trend, which has been in a state of continuous evolution in recent
years ('Flashpacking?' Don't Forget you Still Need Room for Extra Socks", USA
Today). Simultaneous with a change in “what” they’re carrying, backpacking is
also becoming less and less reliant on the physical backpack in its initial form
23
(Catto, Susan. "Practical Traveler; The 'Pack' Of Backpacking", The New York
Times) although the backpack can still be considered the primary luggage of
backpackers.
One of the central tenets of backpacking is the sense of community. Whether
this takes the form of staying at in a dormitory in a hostel with a self-catering
kitchen and communal TV room, sharing rides with other travelers, purchasing a
bus/train pass or something else, what matters is the shared experience. This
allows backpackers to learn from one another while saving money at the same
time: the first-hand account of a fellow traveler can often be more up to date than
what was published in a recent Lonely Planet, the long cited bible of backpacker
travel.
Of equal importance in backpacking is the sense of authenticity. Backpacking
is not a vacation but rather a means of education. Backpackers want to experience
the “real” destination rather than the packaged version often associated with mass
tourism, which has led to the assertion that backpackers are anti-tourist. There is
also the feeling of "sneaking backstage" and witnessing real life with more
involvement with local people (Langston-Able, Nick (2007). Playing with Fire:
Adventures in Indonesia). As time goes by, also, Backpacking as a lifestyle and a
business has grown considerably in the 2000s" (Backpacker Tourism". Market
Segments > Backpacker Tourism. Tourism New South Wales). as the common
place of low cost airlinesThe Netherlands" (PDF). Monthly Market Report.
Tourism Australia, hostels or budget accommodation in many parts of the world,

24
and digital communication and resources make planning, executing and
continuing a long term backpacking trip easier than ever before.
Backpacking, like other forms of travel, remains controversial. Goes with the
general history of backpacking some of these criticisms date back to travelers’
actions along the Hippie Trail. Criticism comes from many sides, including the
host countries and other travelers who disagree with the actions of backpackers
although the perception of backpackers seems to have improved as backpacking
grows more mainstream.
2.5 About the Novel
Into the Wild (1996) by Jon Krakauer is a bestselling non-fiction book about the
adventures of Christopher McCandless. It is an expansion of Krakauer's 9,000-
word article, "Death of an Innocent", which appeared in the January 1993 issued
of Outside. Krakauer intersperses McCandless's story with a discussion of the
wilderness experiences of people such as John Muir and John Menlove Edwards,
as well as some of his own adventures. Krakauer first went to Alaska in 1974 and
has returned there twenty times since. He spent three years carrying out the
background research work for this biography
2.6 About the movie
Into the Wild is a 2007 film based on the 1996 non-fiction book about the
adventures of Christopher McCandless. It was directed by Sean Penn, who also

25
wrote the screenplay, and stars Emile Hirsch, Jena Malone, Marcia Gay Harden,
Vince Vaughn, William Hurt and Catherine Keener.
2.7 Modern life
Modern life also called modernity, it is a different term from modern times, it is
derived from Modernism, a movement in art based on the consciousness that
through the mechanical age of industrialism, humankind has evolved into
something very new - what that would be, would have to be explored by art, and
all previous concepts questioned. Darwin's Origin of Species and Lyell's Principles
of Geology revolutionized the perception of time and race, and that of "mankind"
in particular. There have been numerous ways of understanding what modernity
is, particularly in the field of sociology. A wide variety of terms are used to
describe the society, social life, driving force, symptomatic mentality, or some
other defining aspects of modernity. They include: bureaucracy, disenchantment
of the world, rationalization, secularization, alienation, commodification,
decontextualization, individualism, subjectivism, linear progression, objectivism,
universalism, reductionism, chaos, mass society, industrial society,
homogenization, unification, hybridization, diversification, democratization,
centralization, hierarchical organization, mechanization, totalitarianism, and so
on.(Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).
But as time goes by, modernity which are worshipped and expect to be the mere
future answer are failed to fulfill desire and prosperity in aspects of life
26
thoroughly. It brought a number of indisputable benefits to people. Lower infant
mortality rate, decreased death from starvation, eradication of some of the fatal
diseases, more equal treatment of people with different backgrounds and incomes,
and so on. To some, this is an indication of the potential of modernity, perhaps yet
to be fully realized. In general, rational, scientific approach to problems and the
pursuit of economic wealth seems still too many a reasonable way of
understanding good social development.
2.8 Deconstruction
Deconstruction is the name given by French philosopher Jacques Derrida to an
approach (whether in philosophy, literary analysis, or in other fields) which
rigorously pursues the meaning of a text to the point of undoing the oppositions
on which it is apparently founded, and to the point of showing that those
foundations are irreducibly complex, unstable or, indeed, impossible (from
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).
Derrida takes the word deconstruction from the work of Martin Heidegger.
In the summer of 1927, Martin Heidegger delivered a lecture course now
published under the title, Basic Problems of Phenomenology. Given the topic of
his lectures, Heidegger appropriately begins them with a discussion of the nature
of philosophy and, particularly of the philosophical movement called
phenomenology. Borrowing creatively from his teacher, Edmund Husserl,
Heidegger says that phenomenology is the name for a method of doing
philosophy; he says that the method includes three steps -- reduction,

27
construction, and destruction -- and he explains that these three are mutually
pertinent to one another. Construction necessarily involves destruction, he says,
and then he identifies destruction with deconstruction, Abbau (20-23). Heidegger
explains what he means by philosophical destruction by using an ordinary
German word that we can translate literally "unbuild" (Deconstruction by James
E. Faulconer)
In 1959 Derrida asks the question: must not structure have a genesis, and
must not the origin, the point of genesis, be already structured, in order to be the
genesis of something (Jacques Derrida," ‘Genesis' and 'Structure' and
Phenomenology," in Writing and Difference (London: Routledge) In other words,
every structural or "synchronic" phenomenon has a history, and the structure
cannot be understood without understanding its genesis (Structure, Sign, and Play
in the Discourse of the Human Sciences"). At the same time, in order that there
be movement, or potential, the origin cannot be some pure unity or simplicity, but
must already be articulated—complex—such that from it a "diachronic" process
can emerge. This original complexity must not be understood as an original
positing, but more like a default of origin, which Derrida refers to as iterability,
inscription, or textuality (Cf., Derrida, Positions (Chicago & London: University
of Chicago Press, 1981), pp. 95–6). It is this thought of originary complexity,
rather than original purity, which destabilizes the thought of both genesis and
structure, that sets Derrida's work in motion, and from which derive all of its
terms, including deconstruction (On this destabilization of both "genesis" and

28
"structure," cf., Rodolphe Gasché, The Tain of the Mirror (Cambridge,
Massachusetts, & London: Harvard University Press, 1986), p. 146)
Derrida's method consisted in demonstrating all the forms and varieties of
this originary complexity, and their multiple consequences in many fields. His
way of achieving this was by conducting thorough, careful, sensitive, and yet
transformational readings of philosophical and literary texts, with an ear to what
in those texts runs counter to their apparent systematicity (structural unity) or
intended sense (authorial genesis). By demonstrating the aporias and ellipses of
thought, Derrida hoped to show the infinitely subtle ways that this originary
complexity, which by definition cannot ever be completely known, works its
structuring and destructuring effects (Cf., Rodolphe Gasché, "Infrastructures and
Systematicity," in John Sallis (ed.), Deconstruction and Philosophy (Chicago &
London: University of Chicago Press, 1987), pp. 3–4)
Derrida initially resisted granting to his approach the overarching name
"deconstruction," on the grounds that it was a precise technical term that could not
be used to characterize his work generally. Nevertheless, he eventually accepted
that the term had come into common use to refer to his textual approach, and
Derrida himself increasingly began to use the term in this more general way.
The only way to understand the meaning of deconstruction meaning is to
deconstruct the assumptions and knowledge systems which produce the illusion of
singular meaning (Pengantar Ilmu Kebudayaan, Yan Mujiyanto).This act of
deconstruction illuminates such as; how can taboo things can be acceptable, how
can female become male, how can good thing become bad things and etc.
BAB III
METHODOLOGY
The research methodologies are divided into several parts, the first is the object of
the study. The second presents the sources of data. The third presents the type of
data. The fourth explains the technique of collecting data. The fifth explains the
technique of analyzing data.
3.1 Object of the study
Into the Wild is a novel written by Jon Krakauer is an autobiography of the
young adventurer and nonconformist Christopher McCandless. Written in 1992,
Krakauer describes the events that led to the discovery of McCandless' body in the
Alaskan outback. The novel explores McCandless upbringing, his decisions that
led to his desire to leave society and go 'into the wild' and ultimately tries to make
sense of how McCandless ended up being found dead in an abandoned bus in
Alaska.
3.2 Sources of Data
Arikunto (2002:106) states that data source was a subject where we can get the
data. The sources of data in this research are: A novel of “Into the Wild” by Jon
Krakauer itself. The data will be the form of script and, the quotations which they
are supporting each other as a whole form of the novel “ into the wild” which
29
30
added by internet articles about backpacking, Modern life and other relevant
articles related to the subject, Also Dictionary, PC Encyclopedia: Encarta and
Britannica Encyclopedia and other written references.
3.3 Type of Data
I categorize the data into two kinds; primary data and secondary data. Primary
data are gained from the object of the study; a novel entitled “Into the Wild”
which is written by Jon Krakauer. The data are in the form of dialogue and
quotes which are found in the movie. The secondary data are found in various
text books, internet, PC Encyclopedia, and dictionary that have relation with
the topic of the study.
3.4 Techniques of collecting data
The data of the research are collected in the following steps:
3.4.1 Reading
Reading the novel entitled into the wild many times in order to
have a deep understanding of the story along with its context
clearly. The processes of reading here, the function just as
synchronize take original dialogue spoken by the characters
actions and the time when the action happened in the movie.
Furthermore, this process is done to get deeper ideas which are
related to the topic.
3.4.2 Data Identifying and Marking

31
Identifying the implicit and explicit meanings which
have relation with the topic, I use several steps. They
are:
a. Marking (underlining, bracketing)
b. Numbering
c. Inventorying
Inventorying the term which will be analyzed by using
the table below, those inventoried data can be seen in
the Appendix A, for example;
Table 1
No The Datum (Dialogue/Quotation) Location No.

Page Line Problem
Answer
1
2
3
3.4.3 Analyzing
Analyze the sociology and the psychology of the characters
which involved with backpacking life by several theories of
sociology and psychology from the books and any articles
from media such as: newspaper, magazine and internet.

32
3.4.4 Reporting
The final step in conducting a literary analysis is reporting. Here, the data is
reported into detail analysis that will answer the research problems. The data
which has been selected are reported in the appendix. If the readers want to
see the overall, they can see Appendix A. Appendix B contains a group of
classified data to answer the first problem and appendix C contains a group of
classified data to answer the second problem, and appendix D contains a
group of classified data to answer the third problem.
3.5. Procedures in Analyzing Data
In analyzing the data, I choose deconstruction approach. Deconstruction is a
method of analyzing literature that seeks to uncover multiple layers of meaning,
including the author's intentions and other meanings that are based on how the
same language, images, or ideas have been used before (Microsoft ® Encarta ®
2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation). In this essay I do not use the novel of
into the wild as mere as only material but also books and articles from internet to
support my idea and to reform the story according to my opinion.
3.6 Technique of Reporting the Data Analysis
I use the qualitative research to analyze novel. Qualitative research is research
that gives detailed description and explanation of the phenomenon rather than
providing and analyzing statistics (Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008
Microsoft Corporation). The research analyzes this novel in order to explain

33
and describe the problem that the writer found after watching and comprehend
the movie. It consists of procedures and steps that I have done in the study. I
gained information from some references, articles and text-books related to the
topic.
CHAPTER IV
ANALYSIS
Chapter four presents the analysis of the data to answer the research problems.
There will be a discussion about the summary of Into the Wild’s novel, the
implementation of backpacking life in Into the Wild’s novel, and modern policy
which is protested through the backpacking in the Into the Wild’s novel, And how
does the Into the wild’s story represents backpacking. The analysis would be done
according to the order of the research problems. At the beginning, the writer will
present the synopsis of Into the Wild novel as a bridge to the analysis.
4.1 Summary of Into the Wild novel
The book begun with the discovery of McCandless's body inside an abandoned
bus and retraces his travels during the two years he was missing in Alaska,
Stampede trail.
In this story, Christopher McCandless was a young man from a well-to-do
family but a broken-home son, effect of his domineering, materialistic and
manipulative parents. He was an athlete and genius student at Emory University
with a bunch of achievements and promising future. After graduated, He banished
all of his credit cards and identification documents, also donated $24,000 (nearly
his entire savings) to Oxfam. He wanted to leave a “cage” which has imprisoned
him all this time, he set out of his journey by driving his old car towards his
ultimate goal: to live alone and off the land in Alaska. But on the way, sandstorm
34
35
attacked and buried his car, it did not make him suffered, moreover, this made
him more smiley. He left his car and continued his extreme journey to Alaska by
hitchhiking, after burning all the remains money he had. McCandless had roamed
through the West and Southwest on a vision quest like those made by his heroes
Jack London and John Muir. In the Mojave Desert he abandoned his car, stripped
it of its license plates, and burned all of his cash. He would give himself a new
name, Alexander Supertramp and unencumbered by money and belongings, he
would be freed to wallow in the raw, unfiltered experiences that nature presented.
Craving a blank spot on the map, McCandless simply threw the maps away,
leaving behind his desperate parents and sister, he vanished into the wild.
He started his backpacking trip with circuitous route, he meets many
unconventional individuals on his way toward his final destination, in April 1992,
arriving in the wilds of Alaska nearly two years after his initial departure. He
walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. Four months later, his
decomposed body was found by a moose hunter. How McCandless came to die is
the unforgettable story of Into the Wild. He starts living in a "Magic Bus" serving
as a shelter for people walking in the area (though in the film there is nobody
else). Resourceful, McCandless found a joy in living off the land, and begun to
write a book of his adventures. Unfortunately, as the spring thaw arrived, he was
cut off from civilization by waterways. As his food supply ran out, he worried
down to eat plants. Although he brought the book about the edibility of plants, he
was confused an edible and a poisonous kind, which weakened him. While he
survived the poison, he was unable to find animals to hunt and he slowly starved
36
to death. As he died, he continued to write, detailing his painful death as a
dramatic ending to his autobiography.
4.2.1 The implementation of backpacking life in Into the Wild novel
As time goes by, the world has transmuting into something new as human want,
but also what they are flustered to. Human invented skyscrapers for business area
and future building, but they also feel surfeited with those atmospheres. They are
mad against to war, although they evolve their research in weapon and military.
They feel they imprisoned themselves in their own cage, they want to find their
freedom in somewhere out of their house, some of them set out a new life by
living nomadically, such as hippies and backpackers.
4.2.1.1 Nomadic movement
Backpacking is an activity which is well indentified with nomadic movement or
activity. Most of Backpackers often stay in one place just for couple days or
couple weeks, then move out to the other place. Backpackers therefore seem to be
driven into the far corners of the globe by the ‘experience hunger’ of modern
society (de Cauter, 1995), which also forces them into becoming nomadic. Once
they have consumed the experiences offered by one place, they need to move on
to find new ones. Just like traditional nomadic people, the global nomad
constantly moves from place to place. Datum 1 is one of the nomadic routes of
one of the backpackers in the Movie”into the wild” John McCanddless, the main
character in the Movie;

37
At the end of July, he accepted a ride from a man who called himself Crazy
Ernie and offered McCandless a job on a ranch in northern California;
photographs of the place show an un-painted, tumbledown house
surrounded by goats and chickens, bedsprings, broken televisions, shopping
carts, old appliances, and mounds and mounds of garbage. After working
there eleven days with six other vagabonds, it became clear to McCandless
that Ernie had no intention of ever paying him, so he stole a red ten-speed
bicycle from the clutter
In the yard, pedaled into Chico, and ditched the bike in a mall parking lot.
Then he resumed a life of constant motion, riding his thumb north and west
through Red Bluff, Weaverville, and Willow Creek.
The datum above was one of the John McCandless’s routes, He did not
stuck out for staying in one place, he just stay for couple days then back into his
real life, tramping along the way, doing Hitchhiking along the way, get a free
ride: to get a ride from a passing vehicle, usually by standing at the
side of the road and holding out the hand with the thumb raised
(Encarta Dictionaries). Hitchhiking is often done by the backpackers
to cut out their expenses in their trip. So they can save their money for
the next trip. Sometimes if they run out of money, they will take some
dirty jobs like work in the ranch, farm, and restaurants; A real
backpacker never stays in a certain place for a long time, they work as
38
they need to, and then drive away, back to his “normal” life. Here is
datum 2;
some two weeks after McCandless arrived in Carthage, began serving a
four-month sentence in Sioux Falls. With Westerberg in stir, there was no
work at the grain elevator for McCandless, so on October 23, sooner than
he might have under different circumstances, the boy left town and resumed
a nomadic existence.
On September 1991, Chris worked for Wayne, in his grain field
as grain elevator for couple weeks, then on October 23, as a real
backpacker does, he did not stay for a long time, then he drove his
way back to the road.
The other backpackers are found in this story; they are Jan and
Bob Burres, they called rubber tramps, because they used their van for
their mobile home, here is datum 3;
At Arcata, California, in the dripping redwood forests of the Pacific shore,
McCandless turned right on U.S. Highway 101 and headed up the coast.
Sixty miles south of the Oregon line, near the town of Orick, a pair of
drifters in an old van pulled over to consult their map when they noticed a
boy crouching in the bushes off the side of the road. “He was wearing long
shorts and this reallystupid hat,” says Jan Burres, a forty-one-year-old
rubber tramp who was traveling around the West selling knick-knacks at
39
flea markets and swap meets with her boyfriend, Bob. “He had a book about
plants with him, and he was using it to pick berries, collecting them in a
gallon milk jug with the top cut off. He looked pretty pitiful, so I yelled,
‘Hey, you want a ride somewhere?’ I thought maybe we could give him a
meal or something.
In datum 3, they who travel by car or van, or RV’s (Recreational Vehicle)
are well-known as rubber tramps. They moved from one place to another place. In
North America the term recreational vehicle and its acronym, RV, are generally
used to refer to a vehicle equipped with living space and amenities found in a
home; they are sometimes called motorhomes. A recreational vehicle normally
includes a kitchen, a bathroom, a bedroom and a living room. In other countries
the term camper van is more common, and the vehicles themselves vary, typically
being smaller than in North America (Wikipedia, free encyclopedia), Many of
Americans use RV for long trip, so they do not need to rent a or some rooms in
hotel or motel. This phenomenon makes a lot of people tend to spend their life on
the road or nomadic life.
4.2.1.2 Long length of trip
We do always have time for having vacation such as, visiting recreation place,
place for hanging out and etc; we spent on it approximately couple hours or
maximum couple days. But the thing which differentiates it with backpacking is
the length of time. That vacation or trip also called conventional trip only has
limited time. But in backpacking people use to have such a trip for couple weeks,
40
even maybe couple months. Most of the people who do backpacking are persons
who love freedom such as, students after graduation or maybe they who have long
holiday, people who wants travel around the world, even retirees who want find
something new (backpackers) and etc. In this novel, John McCandless spends 2
years for his backpacking trip. Here are some dialogues for datum 4;
He was elated to be there. Inside the bus, on a sheet of weathered plywood
spanning a broken window, McCandless scrawled an exultant declaration
of independence:
TWO YEARS HE WALKS THE EARTH. NO PHONE, NO POOL, NO PETS,
NO CIGARETTES. ULTIMATE FREEDOM. AN EXTREMIST.
ANAESTHETIC VOYAGER WHOSE HOME IS THE ROAD. ESCAPED
FROM ATLANTA. THOU SHALT NOT RETURN, ‘CAUSE “THE WEST IS
THE BEST. “ AND NOW AFTER TWO RAMBLING YEARS COMES THE
FINAL AND GREATEST ADVENTURE. THE CLIMACTIC BATTLE TO
KILL THE FALSE BEING WITHIN AND VICTORIOUSLY CONCLUDE
THE SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION. TEN DAYS AND NIGHTS OF FREIGHT
TRAINS AND HITCHHIKING BRING HIM TO THE GREAT WHITE
NORTH. NO LONGER TO BE POISONED BY CIVILIZATION HE FLEES,
AND WALKS ALONE UPON THE LAND TO BECOME LOST IN THE
WILD.
ALEXANDER SUPERTRAMP MAY1992

41
These memorial words were carved by McCandless in Alaska on April
1992, before his death. From these words, we know that he had trampling around
America for 2 years by backpacking. He did hitchhiking, anti modernism and
wandered around for long length of time. During two years wandering around
McCandless visited a lot of places around America also meet some locals. These
which make backpacking different with conventional vacation, in conventional
trip they do not have enough time to explore more, they have a plan which based
on limited time. Also meeting locals is one of the most people like, because in
conventional trip they only have a few time to meet locals, his main purpose is
just visiting the place. But in backpacking, most of them are live with the locals.
During his 2 years backpacking, McCandless met a lot of local people. As Pearce
has already pointed out, ‘meeting people’ is one of the main characteristics of
backpacking (Pearce, 1990).Here is datum 5;
On March 14, Franz left McCandless on the shoulder of Interstate 70
outside Grand Junction and returned to southern California. McCandless
was thrilled to be on his way north, and he was relieved as well—relieved
that he had again evaded the impending threat of human intimacy, of
friendship, and all the messy emotional baggage that comes with it. He had
fled the claustrophobic confines of his family. He’d successfully kept Jan
Burres and Wayne Westerberg at arm’s length, flitting out of their lives
before anything was expected of him. And now he’d slipped painlessly out of
Ron Franz’s life as well.

42
In this datum, McCandless met some locals that in unintended way, but he
actually needed, he made friends with them, even as a family too ( McCandless’s
coming in Franz’s life made Franz wanted to adopt him as a grandson, but
McCandless refused it, he wanted to be free).
4.2.1.3 Simple Life
Backpacking life is simple life, like Amish people, like Gypsies, or like Thoreau’s
life. They do not live in a big and luxurious hotel; they do not eat in the classy and
expensive restaurant. They live on the road, in their van; in some cheap motels
even sleep in the bushes, and they prefer public transportation even hitchhiking.
Here is datum 6
By then Chris was long gone. Five weeks earlier he’d loaded all his
belongings into his little car and headed west without an itinerary. The trip
was to be an odyssey in the fullest sense of the word, an epic journey that
would change everything. He had spent the previous four years, as he saw
it, preparing to fulfill an absurd and onerous duty: to graduate from
college. At long last he was unencumbered, emancipated from the stifling
world of his parents and peers, a world of abstraction and security and
material excess, a world in which he felt grievously cut off from the raw
throb of existence.
In this datum, it tells about why McCandless left his house and all the
conformity he had. He wanted to be free, live without security and material excess
he got form the parents and the world he lived. He just wanted to live simple,
43
quiet and peaceful. He tired of being ruled by his college, his parents and things
form modern society that he regarded as fakes, like material things, attention and
security from his parents security.
In datum 4, it tells about McCandless backpacking’s life, splendid
adventure but very simple life he through on, he used no phone, no pet, no pool,
no cigarette. He lived by himself and love nature more. During he lived with his
family, his parents would give him everything he need. But he felt bored with
everything he had, so by backpacking he finally fulfilled his desire and his dream
to life simple without everything which measured by money. Also though he had
some money to buy everything he needs, but just spent as he needed. He moved
from one place to another place by hitchhiking, slept in the tent even in the
bushes, having a shower in the river or waterfall. In a nutshell he lived close to
nature.
One of his favorite authors, Henry David Thoreau is the one who inspired
him to live simple and worshipped nature, like in the datum 7;
No man ever followed his genius till it misled him. Though the result were
bodily weakness, yet perhaps no one can say that the consequences were to
be regretted, for these were a life in conformity to higher principles. If the
day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a
fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry,
more immortal,—that is your success. All nature is your congratulation, and
you have cause momentarily to bless yourself. The greatest gains and values
are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist.
44
We soon forget them. They are the highest reality... The true harvest of my
daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of
morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow
which I have clutched.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU, WALDEN OR LIFE IN THE WOODS
PASSAGE HIGHLIGHTED IN ONE OF THE BOOKS FOUND WITH
CHRIS MCCANDLESS’S REMAINS
As Thoreau’s life reflected in his book, Walden, it fascinated and poisoned
McCandless’s live. That he reflected to into his life, he through on his life as his
authors did.
4.2.2 Modern policy which is protested through backpacking in the Into the
Wild novel
Modern policy is the product of modern life, such as; money, law, time, society
and etc. like a coin which offers us two faces, that modern policy can be our blood
to live or an air to breath, but also can make us suffer. In this novel, the main
character, John McCandless try to prove to himself that he can live without
modernity touch. In a nutshell, he did backpacking to fulfill his dream and grab
his freedom. Here are modern policies which are protested through backpacking;
45
4.2.2.1 The rise of money as a power
Money is a crucial thing, which served human life, treat human everything as they
want to, and many more words to describe. But sometimes it makes people hurt
each other too, even makes a war. Money makes people cautious (McCandless’s
words in Into the Wild movie). It’s true, there are many crimes which is caused by
money. As Simmel conclude, money is not simply an economic but a sociological
phenomenon. ( Simmel: The philosophy of money. Budapest, Gondolat Kiadó,
1973). In this novel, John McCandless protested that money can make people
suffer. Here is datum 8;
Then, in a gesture that would have done both Thoreau and Tolstoy proud,
he arranged all his paper currency in a pile on the sand—a pathetic little
stack of ones and fives and twenties—and put a match to it. One hundred
twenty-three dollars in legal tender was promptly reduced to ash and
smoke.
In this datum, he burn out his remains money into ash and smoke, then he did not
bring any cent at all, because all of his money for his college had been donated to
OXFAM America, a charity dedicated to fighting hunger. He just wanted the
money come into the right hand. Then by burning out his money, he just believes
that money can make people cautious, so he avoided bringing some money though
he needed.
He also believe that money cannot buy someone’s respect, here is datum 9.
46
or that they think I’d actually let them pay for my law school if I was going
to go.... I’ve told them a million times that I have the best car in the world, a
car that has spanned the continent from Miami to Alaska, a car that has in
all those thousands of miles not given me a single problem, a car that I will
never trade in, a car that I am very strongly attached to—yet they ignore
what I say and think I’d actually accept a new car from them! I’m going to
have to be real careful not to accept any gifts from them in the future
because they will think they have bought my respect.
In this datum, McCandless complained to his sister, Carine, about his parent’s
idea to buy him a new car. He strongly offended by this idea to his parents. He
thought his car is still in the best condition, he even thought that his parents
measured everything by money in other word materialistic. He thought that gift
can buy his respect. That’s why he refused his parent wish to buy him a new car.
4.2.2.2 The rules that imprisoned human’s life
A rule is a word that rules human life. It gives line and fence for people, in order
not cross it. In other word make cage around them. Rules in the modern society
are getting stricter, they treat people in different ways. To begin with strict
abiding to laws by people is possible only by imposing punishments for those who
deviates the laws enacted by the government. If there wasn’t any traffic rules and
punishment for the desecration of traffic regulations, there would be disorder
prevailing in the road which would have been the greatest problem of modern
47
society. This is what McCandless hated, why they make rules if it just for their
profit not for the dignity of the justice itself. Here is datum 10,
If he went to the rangers, however, they would have some irksome questions for
him: Why had he ignored posted regulations and driven down the wash in the
first place? Was he aware that the vehicle’s registration had expired two years
before and had not been renewed? Did he know that his driver’s license had
also expired, and the vehicle was uninsured as well?
Truthful responses to these queries were not likely to be well received by the
rangers. McCandless could endeavor to explain that he answered to statutes of
a higher order—that as a latter-day adherent of Henry David Thoreau, he took
as gospel the essay “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience” and thus considered it
his moral responsibility to flout the laws of the state. It was improbable,
however, that deputies of the federal government would share his point of view.
In this datum, it tells the story when McCandless’s car was flown out by
sandstone, then, since his car machine did not work, he decided to leave it.
Because he would not give his car to the rangers that would asked some questions
that troubled him. In this datum we can also conclude that, what McCandless done
to his car by did not renew his vehicle registration and his driver license also
uninsured his car too, were his act to flout or against the laws of the state as his
favorite authors did, Thoreau , on his book “ On the duty of Civil Disobedience “.
McCandless did not care about government rules and bureaucracy, He did not
afraid for being caught, he only believes in his gospel “On the duty of Civil
Disobedience”. Like in the datum 11:

48
Gallien asked whether he had a hunting license.
“Hell, no,” Alex scoffed. “How I feed myself is none of the government’s
business. Fuck their stupid rules.”
In this datum, it tells about how he showed his protest against law. He did not care
whether he had a hunting license or not, he had a thought that it is none of
government business how he fed himself, also it is not important to have a license,
because it did not change at all. He disobeyed all the government rules, he only
put his faith on Thoreau’s book. Why he was so hate with government rules is
about unsolved problems by law in this era, we will root his youth in his college,
here is datum 12;
in 1988, as Chris’s resentment of his parents hardened, his sense of outrage
over injustice in the world at large grew. started complaining about all the
rich kids at Emory.” More and more of the classes he took addressed such
pressing social issues as racism and world hunger and inequities in the
distribution of wealth.
This datum tells about one of McCandless’s past, In 1988 , because of the broken
home family he had, he find a way to release his emotion by studying social class
that open his eyes about nowadays injustice policies, he wanted to know more
about injustice a lot. Then he took social class as mentioned above.

49
4.2.2.3 The domination of time over human
Time for modern people is a guide, which always give them schedule and warn
them for some appointment. The good thing is that our life is organized and well
managed. But for some reason, some people want to find an “escape”. Because
they do not want to get stuck in a “pattern” and bored with the well organized of
their life. It is no doubt that people want to be free, and there are only two people,
they who stay in on the line and find an “escape”. Backpackers are one of the
“escape” finder, they break the cage and leave the routine activities they have.
When people do backpacking, they do not have an organized trip, schedule or
some trouble thing. Here is datum 13:
Alex insisted on giving Gallien his watch, his comb, and what he said was
all his money: eighty-five cents in loose change. “I don’t want your money,”
Gallien protested, “and I already have a watch.”
“If you don’t take it, I’m going to throw it away,” Alex cheerfully retorted.
“I don’t want to know what time it is. I don’t want to know what day it is or
where
I am. None of that matters.”
In this datum, it tells about the conversation of McCandless with a driver,
named Gallien, who drove him from Fairbanks to the edge of Denali Park, his
start for entering his dream lay on, the Last Frontier, Alaska. In this datum,
McCandless force Gallien to accept all of his remains belonging, one of them is
his watch, whom he always put in his wrist. Then he said, that he did not want to
50
know what time nor day would be, he wanted to be free from time that always
scheduled him in everything. Like in datum 14:
McCandless explained to Burres that he’d grown tired of Bullhead, tired of
punching a clock, tired of the “plastic people” he worked with, and decided
to get the hell out of town.
It was happened during his backpacking trip, when he finally wanted to
settle down in Bullhead city, then he made up his mind at last, he tired of
scheduled time from the restaurant he worked, he could not bear to be ruled by
other people. He did backpacking to get his freedom not to be bound in a rule,
then he left his job and back to the road, as he used to.
4.2.2.4 The “Plastic” Society
Society is the manner or condition in which the members of a community live
together for their mutual benefit. By extension, society denotes the people of a
region or country, sometimes even the world, taken as a whole (Wiktionary
definition of society. Retrieved 18 October 2009). People or society itself are
changing as time goes by, when people used to know each other in a village then
become stranger to each other, or when job is more important they get closer to
their job rather than their life with the society even their family. In this story,
McCandless often hated to the society he live, why they hurt each other, why
starvation is occur when the other people have abundance food. Here is datum 15;
“You could tell right away that Alex was intelligent,” Wester-berg reflects,
draining his third drink. “He read a lot. Used a lot of big words. I think
51
maybe part of what got him into trouble was that he did too much thinking.
Sometimes he tried too hard to make sense of the world, to figure out why
people were bad to each other so often. A couple of times I tried to tell him
it was a mistake to get too deep into that kind of stuff, but Alex got stuck on
things. He always had to know the absolute right answer before he could go
on to the next thing.”
In this datum, Westernberg, his close friend, described McCandless’s
character, that he was intelligent man, he had a deep thought about why people
were bad to each other, he cursed society he live. Although Westernberg always
reminded him not to take it deeply, but he always had an answer for every advice
Westernberg gave. It was caused by broken home family he had, which made his
views like so.
Another example is like in datum 15, in this datum he got bored to “plastic
people” a nickname, which he used by himself to name the modern society, which
means artificial or unnatural people because they ruled by the modernity neither
by their heart nor by their soul.
4.2.3 The story represents backpacking
In subchapter II which analyze about the implementation of backpacking is a
backpacking describes in general, then in this subchapter we will analyze about
how the story describes the backpacking itself.

52
4.2.3.1 The world of freedom
The backpacking life offers a word that every human want, freedom. Freedom is
something that out of the line, out of the rules, out of the routine. The modern
society which is created with new system such as: power of money, bureaucracy,
and rules that imprisoned human are pressed and seize human freedom. While in
backpacking, it offers human something that they cannot get in modern society,
such as: when people have a tour for their vacation, they have to obey the rules
about the time and schedule, but while in backpacking you can spend as much
time as you want, or when you have a schedule for wake up early for school or go
to office or deadline and home works, it does not exist. The rules and the schedule
are in your hand. In this story, McCandless had undetermined schedule or plan for
his own trip, he managed to get around America without any limited time or
deadline as we found in datum 4:
He was elated to be there. Inside the bus, on a sheet of weathered plywood
spanning a broken window, McCandless scrawled an exultant declaration
of independence:
TWO YEARS HE WALKS THE EARTH. NO PHONE, NO POOL, NO PETS,
NO CIGARETTES. ULTIMATE FREEDOM. AN EXTREMIST.
ANAESTHETIC VOYAGER WHOSE HOME IS THE ROAD. ESCAPED
FROM ATLANTA. THOU SHALT NOT RETURN, ‘CAUSE “THE WEST IS
THE BEST. “ AND NOW AFTER TWO RAMBLING YEARS COMES THE
FINAL AND GREATEST ADVENTURE. THE CLIMACTIC BATTLE TO
KILL THE FALSE BEING WITHIN AND VICTORIOUSLY CONCLUDE

53
THE SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION. TEN DAYS AND NIGHTS OF FREIGHT
TRAINS AND HITCHHIKING BRING HIM TO THE GREAT WHITE
NORTH. NO LONGER TO BE POISONED BY CIVILIZATION HE FLEES,
AND WALKS ALONE UPON THE LAND TO BECOME LOST IN THE
WILD.
ALEXANDER SUPERTRAMP MAY1992
In this datum we can analyze that his trip was an ultimate freedom, full of
many adventurous trip, hitchhiking along the way, and unlimited time had for his
trip, which no schedule and no rules, in other word ultimate freedom.
4.2.3.2 Adventurous life
We cannot never resist that adventure is the blood and flesh of backpacking life,
stretches to its flesh and hangs on its bones. Because in backpacking life they do
not offers conformity stay such as: luxurious hotel with its swimming pool and
satellite TV, or well-planned trip which tight on schedule. In backpacking, they
obsessed to look for places that not touristy, exotic, unvisited place and unusual
way. Datum 16 is one of McCandless adventurous during his backpacking trip;
Still, Gallien was concerned. Alex admitted that the only food in his pack
was a ten-pound bag of rice. His gear seemed exceedingly minimal for the
harsh conditions of the interior, which in April still lay buried under the
winter snowpack. Alex’s cheap leather hiking boots were neither waterproof
nor well insulated. His rifle was only .22 caliber, a bore too small to rely on
if he expected to kill large animals like moose and caribou, which he would
have to eat if he hoped to remain very long in the country. He had no ax, no
54
bug dope, no snowshoes, no compass. The only navigational aid in his
possession was a tattered state road map he’d scrounged at a gas station.
This datum tells about the story of McCandless before entered Alaska, his
dream to live in and his heaven as he laid his faith on it. A driver, named Gallien
drove him to the Alaska was afraid about McCandless tools to spent an
undetermined time in Alaska, he only brought ten pound rice, old hiking boots
which is not waterproof, a riffle that only could kill little animal, no ax, no bug
dope, and no compass. This adventurous was whom he called the greatest of his
adventure, because he would live in the area that nobody lives there and of course
with limited tools. This is one of McCandless adventurous trip during
backpacking, he also used canoe as his one of adventurous trip, and here is datum
17;
While he was in town, he noticed a secondhand aluminum canoe for sale
and on an impulse decided to buy it and paddle it down the Colorado River
to the Gulf of California, nearly four hundred miles to the south, across the
border with Mexico,This lower stretch of the river, from Hoover Dam to the
gulf, has little in common with the unbridled torrent that explodes through
the Grand Canyon, some 250 miles upstream from Topock, From Topock,
McCandless paddled south down Lake Havasu under a bleached dome of
sky, huge and empty. He made a brief excursion up the Bill Williams River,
a tributary of the Colorado, then continued downstream through the
Colorado River Indian Reservation, the Cibola National Wildlife Refuge,

55
the Imperial National Wildlife Refuge, On December 2, he reached the
Morelos Dam and the Mexican border.
This datum tells about how McCandless went around America by his
canoe, he start to paddle it down from Colorado river to the Gulf of California
until Mexican border, without license nor with proper equipment, such as safety
helmet and etc, he does not court danger but rather stumbles across it, thrillingly
and then fatally, on the road to joy. Datum 18 is one of backpacking trip’s
McCandless by hitchhiking:
After loading his few remaining possessions into a backpack, McCandless
set out on July 10 to hike around Lake Mead, he managed to flag down
some passing boaters, who gave him a lift to Callville Bay, a marina near
the west end of the lake, where he stuck out his thumb and took to the road.
McCandless tramped around the West for the next two months, spellbound
by the scale and power of the landscape, thrilled by minor brushes with the
law, savoring the intermittent company of other vagabonds he met along the
way. Allowing his life to be shaped by circumstance, he hitched to Lake
Tahoe, hiked into the Sierra Nevada, and spent a week walking north on the
Pacific Crest Trail before exiting the mountains and returning to the
pavement.
This datum tells about how McCandless did hitchhiking during his trip
from Lake Mead to Pacific Crest Trail, moved from one place to another place by
56
hitchhiking, met some vagabonds along the way, spent a week on the mountains
then drove back to the roads.
From the description and analysis above we can conclude that most of
backpacking trip is full of adventurous thing start from hitchhiking, canoe trip,
Alaska and many trips which had not mentioned.
4.1.5 Lifestyle
Backpacking is a lifestyle. It’s true, when people tend to live in their flat or their
apartment with everything is already available or just to stay in one place for their
entire of life, backpacking offers to live with many unusual way, like simple
living, adventurous life and so on. In this story, by backpacking McCandless lived
like a drifter but felt real happy. Here is datum 19:
When he returned to McCandless’s camp and launched into the
selfimprovement in pitch, though, McCandless cut him off abruptly. “Look,
Mr. Franz,” he declared, “you don’t need to worry about me. I have a
college education. I’m not destitute. I’m living like this by choice.” And
then, despite his initial prickliness, the young man warmed to the old-timer,
and the two engaged in a long conversation.
In this datum, Franz advised McCandless to find a better way to live, but
he said it was my own choice of life proudly. He did backpacking for some years
were as his dream to live in freedom, silent and peace not as his past with his
“broken home “family. Another backpackers who regard backpacking as a
lifestyle, is in datum 3;
57
Sixty miles south of the Oregon line, near the town of Orick, a pair of
drifters in an old van pulled over to consult their map when they noticed a
boy crouching in the bushes off the side of the road. “He was wearing long
shorts and this really stupid hat,” says Jan Burres, a forty-one-year-old
rubber tramp who was traveling around the West selling knick-knacks at
flea markets and swap meets with her boyfriend, Bob. “He had a book about
plants with him, and he was using it to pick berries, collecting them in a
gallon milk jug with the top cut off.
In this datum we will focus in Jan and Bob Burres, as we know that they
were rubber tramp who travelling around with their van and selling knick-knacks
at flea markets. They live on the road, they chose how they live by themselves. In
other word they also called by RV’s, The RV lifestyle is made up of those
interested in traveling and camping rather than living in one location, as well as
by vacationers. Some travel nearer the equator during the winter months in their
RV and return in spring. This is why they are sometimes referred to as a
snowbirding in the USA. There is also a large segment of younger people who
participate in the RV lifestyle. Those who live in an RV are known as fulltimers
and live H.O.W. (Houses On Wheels) in comparison to those who live primarily
in a house and are known as slabbers or part-timers. There is another subculture of
the RV lifestyle known as workampers, these are people that work at the
campgrounds/RV parks they stay at for site and perks.

CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS
5.1 Conclusion
After doing the analysis in the previous chapter, I draw some points as the
conclusion of the analysis. Into the Wild is a novel by Jon Krakauer that tells
about the adventure of Chris McCandless’s escape from the ‘plastic’ modern
society he had. He tried it through to do it by backpacking to Alaska. By
backpacking, he showed his protest against modern life also he found freedom
and destiny that he had dreamt about.
Why he did backpacking as his escape from the entire things that made
him revolted is because by backpacking he found his true life. He could moved
from one place to another place as he wants which simply called nomadic
movement, also we can see the other wanderer is Jan and Rainey, vagabonds who
lives in his RV as their mobile home. He could also had undetermined time for his
trip, which in the story he spent 2 years for wandering around, and also he had a
simple life during his trip by backpacking, he slept in road or someone house or
even sleep in bushes, went around anywhere he wanted by hitchhiking, live
simply without phone, pet, cigarette nor phone too. And he did not feel suffer or
on a pressure to live like so, he was happy with everything he did.
By simple living and backpacking, he also showed his protest against
modern life, he cursed and refused for modern life. He felt sick more than enough
58
59
to live in his family, a rich family but gave him fake conformity and security
which made him and his sister, Carine, suffered. He gave all of his college savings
to OXFAM, an international charity dedicated to hunger and famine, and he also
burnt his money into ashes before he started his extreme journey. He did not obey
the rules, law and bureaucracy which does not help human, but stressed and
imprisoned human for his life. He did not want to be patterned in the time which
always bound him, by backpacking, he does not have to get done his schedule
which based on time, like school, job and many things. The most things which he
protested against is the “plastic” society, a nickname for the society which is
patterned with modern things such as money talks, punching clocks and
bureaucracy which make human as “plastic” things. All the modern things above
does not make human better but suffered inside.
In this story backpacking is represented as ultimate freedom, which the
rules and the schedule are in your own hands, The Backpacking also closes
meaning to adventurous trip, for some extreme things such as; hitchhiking along
the way, wandering around by canoe trip, and live alone in Alaska, which all of
them made the trip livelier and become story. Also, backpacking regarded as a
lifestyle, to live nomadic, to live like vagabonds or drifters without any rules and
taxes touch. They live like so, not because of they cannot find a house or good job
or etc, but it is their choice of life, no matter what people would say.
60
5.2 Suggestion
Based on story and conclusion above, I would like to present some suggestion
after analyze the novel of ‘Into the Wild”. The story is melancholic and has a
tragic ending story, which in fact, disappointed readers but this is not what I
discuss, but the digest of the story, aspects of protest against modern life and
description of backpacking, which just appears in recently.
I hope that the story would give some new views about the story, by his
protest against modern life using deconstruction. And also give some view about
modern society, things that have changes, like money, rules and bureaucracy. In
general I talk about protest against modern life, but I manage to discuss about
backpacking in complete discussion. Also by analyzing this story, I hope that
readers always have critical though likes McCandless, to think outside the line.
No matter how it will be, do not let life conquer your life, but decide it by your
own.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
a b Cohen, Erik (2003). "Backpacking: Diversity and Change" (PDF). Tourism

and Cultural Change 1 (2): 95–110. http://www.multilingual-
matters.net/jtc/001/0095/jtc0010095.pdf. Retrieved 2007-10-29.
a b c d George Cole; Ryan Jordan; Alan Dixon (2006), Lightweight Backpacking

and Camping, Bozeman, MT: Beartooth Mountain Press, ISBN
0974818828.
Adem, Seifudein. 2004. "Decolonizing Modernity: Ibn-Khaldun and Modern

Historiography". In Islam: Past, Present and Future, International Seminar on
Islamic Thought Proceedings.
----------Administration & Society, Vol. 34, No. 6, 700-723 (2003).
Adkins, Barbara; Eryn Grant (2007-08). "Backpackers as a Community of

Strangers: The Interaction Order of an Online Backpacker Notice
Board" (PDF). Qualitative Sociology Review 3 (2): 188–201.
Backpacker Tourism". Market Segments > Backpacker Tourism. Tourism New

South Wales.
http://corporate.tourism.nsw.gov.au/Backpacker_Tourism_p726.aspx.
Retrieved 2008-04-07.
Cohen, E. (1973) Nomads from affluence: Notes on the phenomenon of drifter

tourism. International Journal of Comparative Sociology 14 (1–2), 89–
103. International Journal of Comparative Sociology 14, 89–103.
Cohen, E. (1995) Contemporary tourism: Trends and challenges. In R. Butler and

D.
Cloke, P. and Perkins, H. (1998) ‘Cracking the canyon with the awesome
foursome’: Representations of adventure tourism in New Zealand.
Environment and Planning.
Deconstruction by James E. Faulconer (1998).
---------D: Society and Space 16, 185–218.
61
62
-----Encarta Encyclopedia 2009.
G. Simmel: The philosophy of money. Budapest, Gondolat Kiadó, 1973.
Giddens, Anthony. 1998. Conversations with Anthony Giddens: Making Sense of

Modernity. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. ISBN
0804735689 (cloth) ISBN 0804735697 (pbk.).
Krakauer, Jon (1996). Into the Wild.
Jarzombek, Mark. 2000. The Psychologizing of Modernity: Art, Architecture,

History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Krakauer, Jon. Death of an Innocent: How Christopher McCandless Lost His Way
in the Wilds. Outside Magazine, January, 1997. Retrieved Sept. 1, 2007.
Leppert, Richard. 2004. "The Social Discipline of Listening". In Aural Cultures,

edited by Jim Drobnick, 19-35. Toronto: YYZ Books; Banff: Walter
Phillips Gallery Editions. ISBN 0920397808
Mujiyanto, Yan (2008)Pengantar Ilmu Kebudayaan.
Pearce (eds) Change in Tourism (pp. 12–29). London: Routledge.
Richards, Greg; Julie Wilson (2004). The Global Nomad: Backpacker Theory in
Travel and Practice. Channel View Publications. pp. 80–91. ISBN
1873150768.
Slocock, N. (May 2004). ‘Living a Life of Simplicity?' A Response to Francis of

Assisi by Adrian House.
http://www.course-notes.org/Into_The_Wild_John_Krakauer_Literary_Analysis
http://www.qualitativesociologyreview.org/ENG/Volume7/QSR_3_2_Adkins_Gr
ant.pdf. Retrieved 2007-10-29
http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Independent travel, 5 February 2009
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backpacking_(travel) taken on 05th August 2009
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backpacking_(wilderness) October 1, 2009
http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Ultralight backpacking October 1, 2009

63
http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Nomad, 11 November 2009
http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Snowbird (people), 11 November 2009
http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Recreational vehicle, 11 November 2009
http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Travel trailer, 11 November 2009
http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Tramper, 11 November 2009
http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Simple living, 17 February 2009
http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Deconstruction, 3 March 2009
http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Modernity, 2 March 2009
http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Society, 17 November 2009
http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Bureaucracy 17 November 2009

Appendix A
Appendix Overall
Location No.
No The Datum (Dialogue/Quotation) Problem
Page Line
Answer
1 At the end of July, he accepted a ride from a man 22 17 1
who called himself Crazy Ernie and offered
McCandless a job on a ranch in northern
California; photographs of the place show an un-
painted, tumbledown house surrounded by goats
and chickens, bedsprings, broken televisions,
shopping carts, old appliances, and mounds and
mounds of garbage. After working there eleven
days with six other vagabonds, it became clear to
McCandless that Ernie had no intention of ever
paying him, so he stole a red ten-speed bicycle
from the clutter, in the yard, pedaled into Chico,
and ditched the bike in a mall parking lot. Then
he resumed a life of constant motion, riding his
thumb north and west through Red Bluff,
Weaverville, and Willow Creek.
2 some two weeks after McCandless arrived in 15 38 1
Carthage, began serving a four-month sentence
in Sioux Falls. With Westerberg in stir, there
was no work at the grain elevator for
McCandless, so on October 23, sooner than he
might have under different circumstances, the
boy left town and resumed a nomadic existence.
3 At Arcata, California, in the dripping redwood 22 27 1

forests of the Pacific shore, McCandless turned
right on U.S. Highway 101 and headed up the
coast. Sixty miles south of the Oregon line, near
the town of Orick, a pair of drifters in an old van
pulled over to consult their map when they
noticed a boy crouching in the bushes off the
side of the road. “He was wearing long shorts
64
65
and this really stupid hat,” says Jan Burres, a

forty-one-year-old rubber tramp who was
traveling around the West selling knick-knacks
at flea markets and swap meets with her
boyfriend, Bob. “He had a book about plants
with him, and he was using it to pick berries,
collecting them in a gallon milk jug with the top
cut off. He looked pretty pitiful, so I yelled,
‘Hey, you want a ride somewhere?’ I thought
maybe we could give him a meal or something.
4 He was elated to be there. Inside the bus, on a 112 20 2

sheet of weathered plywood spanning a broken
window, McCandless scrawled an exultant
declaration of independence:
TWO YEARS HE WALKS THE EARTH. NO
PHONE, NO POOL, NO PETS, NO
CIGARETTES. ULTIMATE FREEDOM. AN
EXTREMIST. ANAESTHETIC VOYAGER
WHOSE HOME IS THE ROAD. ESCAPED
FROM ATLANTA. THOU SHALT NOT
RETURN, ‘CAUSE “THE WEST IS THE
BEST. “ AND NOW AFTER TWO
RAMBLING YEARS COMES THE FINAL
AND GREATEST ADVENTURE. THE
CLIMACTIC BATTLE TO KILL THE FALSE
BEING WITHIN AND VICTORIOUSLY
CONCLUDE THE SPIRITUAL
REVOLUTION. TEN DAYS AND NIGHTS OF
FREIGHT TRAINS AND HITCHHIKING
BRING HIM TO THE GREAT WHITE
NORTH. NO LONGER TO BE POISONED BY
CIVILIZATION HE FLEES, AND WALKS
ALONE UPON THE LAND TO BECOME
LOST IN THE WILD.
ALEXANDER SUPERTRAMP
MAY1992
5 On March 14, Franz left McCandless on the 29 31 1 and 3

shoulder of Interstate 70 outside Grand Junction
66
and returned to southern California. McCandless

was thrilled to be on his way north, and he was
relieved as well—relieved that he had again
evaded the impending threat of human intimacy,
of friendship, and all the messy emotional
baggage that comes with it. He had fled the
claustrophobic confines of his family. He’d
successfully kept Jan Burres and Wayne
Westerberg at arm’s length, flitting out of their
lives before anything was expected of him. And
now he’d slipped painlessly out of Ron Franz’s
life as well.
6 By then Chris was long gone. Five weeks earlier 18 2 1
he’d loaded all his belongings into his little car
and headed west without an itinerary. The trip
was to be an odyssey in the fullest sense of the
word, an epic journey that would change
everything. He had spent the previous four years,
as he saw it, preparing to fulfill an absurd and
onerous duty: to graduate from college. At long
last he was unencumbered, emancipated from the
stifling world of his parents and peers, a world of
abstraction and security and material excess, a
world in which he felt grievously cut off from
the raw throb of existence.
7 No man ever followed his genius till it misled 34 1 1 and 3
him. Though the result were bodily weakness,
yet perhaps no one can say that the consequences
were to be regretted, for these were a life in
conformity to higher principles. If the day and
the night are such that you greet them with joy,
and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-
scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more
immortal,—that is your success. All nature is
your congratulation, and you have cause
momentarily to bless yourself. The greatest gains
and values are farthest from being appreciated.
We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon
forget them. They are the highest reality... The
true harvest of my daily life is somewhat an
67
intangible and indescribable as the tints of

morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught
a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU, WALDEN OR
LIFE IN THE WOODS PASSAGE
HIGHLIGHTED IN ONE OF THE BOOKS
FOUND WITH CHRIS MCCANDLESS’S
REMAINS
8 Then, in a gesture that would have done both 21 40 1
Thoreau and Tolstoy proud, he arranged all his
paper currency in a pile on the sand—a pathetic
little stack of ones and fives and twenties—and
put a match to it. One hundred twenty-three
dollars in legal tender was promptly reduced to
ash and smoke.
9 or that they think I’d actually let them pay for 17 1 2
my law school if I was going to go.... I’ve told
them a million times that I have the best car in
the world, a car that has spanned the continent
from Miami to Alaska, a car that has in all those
thousands of miles not given me a single
problem, a car that I will never trade in, a car
that I am very strongly attached to—yet they
ignore what I say and think I’d actually accept a
new car from them! I’m going to have to be real
careful not to accept any gifts from them in the
future because they will think they have bought
my respect.
10 If he went to the rangers, however, they would 21 19 2
have some irksome questions for him: Why had
he ignored posted regulations and driven down
the wash in the first place? Was he aware that
the vehicle’s registration had expired two years
before and had not been renewed? Did he know
that his driver’s license had also expired, and the
vehicle was uninsured as well? Truthful
responses to these queries were not likely to be
well received by the rangers. McCandless could
endeavor to explain that he answered to statutes
of a higher order—that as a latter-day adherent
68
of Henry David Thoreau, he took as gospel the

essay “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience” and
thus considered it his moral responsibility to
flout the laws of the state. It was improbable,
however, that deputies of the federal government
would share his point of view.
11 Gallien asked whether he had a hunting license. 7 7 2
“Hell, no,” Alex scoffed. “How I feed myself is
none of the government’s business. Fuck their
stupid rules.”
12 in 1988, as Chris’s resentment of his parents 85 46 2
hardened, his sense of outrage over injustice in
the world at large grew. started complaining
about all the rich kids at Emory.” More and more
of the classes he took addressed such pressing
social issues as racism and world hunger and
inequities in the distribution of wealth.85 46
13 eighty-five cents in loose change. “I don’t want 7 29 2
your money,” Gallien protested, “and I already
have a watch.”
“If you don’t take it, I’m going to throw it
away,” Alex cheerfully retorted. “I don’t want to
know what time it is. I don’t want to know what
day it is or where I am. None of that matters.”
14 McCandless explained to Burres that he’d grown 31 22 2
tired of Bullhead, tired of punching a clock, tired
of the “plastic people” he worked with, and
decided to get the hell out of town
15 “You could tell right away that Alex was 15 8 2
intelligent,” Wester-berg reflects, draining his
third drink. “He read a lot. Used a lot of big
words. I think maybe part of what got him into
trouble was that he did too much thinking.
Sometimes he tried too hard to make sense of the
world, to figure out why people were bad to each
other so often. A couple of times I tried to tell
him it was a mistake to get too deep into that
kind of stuff, but Alex got stuck on things. He
always had to know the absolute right answer
before he could go on to the next thing.”15 8
69
16 Still, Gallien was concerned. Alex admitted that 6 21 3

the only food in his pack was a ten-pound bag of
rice. His gear seemed exceedingly minimal for
the harsh conditions of the interior, which in
April still lay buried under the winter snowpack.
Alex’s cheap leather hiking boots were neither
waterproof nor well insulated. His rifle was only
.22 caliber, a bore too small to rely on if he
expected to kill large animals like moose and
caribou, which he would have to eat if he hoped
to remain very long in the country. He had no ax,
no bug dope, no snowshoes, no compass. The
only navigational aid in his possession was a
tattered state road map he’d scrounged at a gas
station.
17 While he was in town, he noticed a secondhand 24 5 3
aluminum canoe for sale and on an impulse
decided to buy it and paddle it down the
Colorado River to the Gulf of California, nearly
four hundred miles to the south, across the
border with Mexico,This lower stretch of the
river, from Hoover Dam to the gulf, has little in
common with the unbridled torrent that explodes
through the Grand Canyon, some 250 miles
upstream from Topock, From Topock,
McCandless paddled south down Lake Havasu
under a bleached dome of sky, huge and empty.
He made a brief excursion up the Bill Williams
River, a tributary of the Colorado, then
continued downstream through the Colorado
River Indian Reservation, the Cibola National
Wildlife Refuge, the Imperial National Wildlife
Refuge, On December 2, he reached the Morelos
Dam and the Mexican border.
18 After loading his few remaining possessions into 22 6 3
a backpack, McCandless set out on July 10 to
hike around Lake Mead, he managed to flag
down some passing boaters, who gave him a lift
to Callville Bay, a marina near the west end of
the lake, where he stuck out his thumb and took
70
to the road. McCandless tramped around the

West for the next two months, spellbound by the
scale and power of the landscape, thrilled by
minor brushes with the law, savoring the
intermittent company of other vagabonds he met
along the way. Allowing his life to be shaped by
circumstance, he hitched to Lake Tahoe, hiked
into the Sierra Nevada, and spent a week
walking north on the Pacific Crest Trail before
exiting the mountains and returning to the
pavement.
19 When he returned to McCandless’s camp and 36 38 3
launched into the selfimprovement in pitch,
though, McCandless cut him off abruptly.
“Look, Mr. Franz,” he declared, “you don’t need
to worry about me. I have a college education.
I’m not destitute. I’m living like this by choice.”
And then, despite his initial prickliness, the
young man warmed to the old-timer, and the two
engaged in a long conversation.
71
Appendix B
List of the Data Supporting Statement of the Problem Number
One
Page Line Problem
Answer
1 At the end of July, he accepted a ride from a man 22 17 1
who called himself Crazy Ernie and offered
McCandless a job on a ranch in northern
California; photographs of the place show an un-
painted, tumbledown house surrounded by goats
and chickens, bedsprings, broken televisions,
shopping carts, old appliances, and mounds and
mounds of garbage. After working there eleven
days with six other vagabonds, it became clear to
McCandless that Ernie had no intention of ever
paying him, so he stole a red ten-speed bicycle
from the clutter, in the yard, pedaled into Chico,
and ditched the bike in a mall parking lot. Then
he resumed a life of constant motion, riding his
thumb north and west through Red Bluff,
Weaverville, and Willow Creek.
2 some two weeks after McCandless arrived in 15 38 1
Carthage, began serving a four-month sentence
in Sioux Falls. With Westerberg in stir, there
was no work at the grain elevator for
McCandless, so on October 23, sooner than he
might have under different circumstances, the
boy left town and resumed a nomadic existence.
3 At Arcata, California, in the dripping redwood 22 27 1
forests of the Pacific shore, McCandless turned
right on U.S. Highway 101 and headed up the
coast. Sixty miles south of the Oregon line, near
the town of Orick, a pair of drifters in an old van
pulled over to consult their map when they
noticed a boy crouching in the bushes off the
side of the road. “He was wearing long shorts
and this really stupid hat,” says Jan Burres, a
forty-one-year-old rubber tramp who was
traveling around the West selling knick-knacks
at flea markets and swap meets with her
boyfriend, Bob. “He had a book about plants
with him, and he was using it to pick berries,
collecting them in a gallon milk jug with the top
cut off. He looked pretty pitiful, so I yelled,
58
72
‘Hey, you want a ride somewhere?’ I thought

maybe we could give him a meal or something.
4 He was elated to be there. Inside the bus, on a 112 20 2
sheet of weathered plywood spanning a broken
window, McCandless scrawled an exultant
declaration of independence:
TWO YEARS HE WALKS THE EARTH. NO
PHONE, NO POOL, NO PETS, NO
CIGARETTES. ULTIMATE FREEDOM. AN
EXTREMIST. ANAESTHETIC VOYAGER
WHOSE HOME IS THE ROAD. ESCAPED
FROM ATLANTA. THOU SHALT NOT
RETURN, ‘CAUSE “THE WEST IS THE
BEST. “ AND NOW AFTER TWO
RAMBLING YEARS COMES THE FINAL
AND GREATEST ADVENTURE. THE
CLIMACTIC BATTLE TO KILL THE FALSE
BEING WITHIN AND VICTORIOUSLY
CONCLUDE THE SPIRITUAL
REVOLUTION. TEN DAYS AND NIGHTS OF
FREIGHT TRAINS AND HITCHHIKING
BRING HIM TO THE GREAT WHITE
NORTH. NO LONGER TO BE POISONED BY
CIVILIZATION HE FLEES, AND WALKS
ALONE UPON THE LAND TO BECOME
LOST IN THE WILD.
ALEXANDER SUPERTRAMP
MAY1992
5 On March 14, Franz left McCandless on the 29 31 1
life as well.
6 By then Chris was long gone. Five weeks earlier 18 2 1
he’d loaded all his belongings into his little car
and headed west without an itinerary. The trip
was to be an odyssey in the fullest sense of the
73
word, an epic journey that would change

everything. He had spent the previous four years,
as he saw it, preparing to fulfill an absurd and
onerous duty: to graduate from college. At long
last he was unencumbered, emancipated from the
stifling world of his parents and peers, a world of
abstraction and security and material excess, a
world in which he felt grievously cut off from
the raw throb of existence.
7 No man ever followed his genius till it misled 34 1 1 and 3
REMAINS
8 Then, in a gesture that would have done both 21 40 1
Thoreau and Tolstoy proud, he arranged all his
paper currency in a pile on the sand—a pathetic
little stack of ones and fives and twenties—and
put a match to it. One hundred twenty-three
dollars in legal tender was promptly reduced to
ash and smoke.
74
Appendix C
List of the Data Supporting Statement of Problem Number Two
Location No.
No The Datum (Dialogue/Quotation) Problem
Page Line Answer
1 or that they think I’d actually let them pay for 17 1 2
my law school if I was going to go.... I’ve told
them a million times that I have the best car in
the world, a car that has spanned the continent
from Miami to Alaska, a car that has in all those
thousands of miles not given me a single
problem, a car that I will never trade in, a car
that I am very strongly attached to—yet they
ignore what I say and think I’d actually accept a
new car from them! I’m going to have to be real
careful not to accept any gifts from them in the
future because they will think they have bought
my respect.
2 If he went to the rangers, however, they would 21 19 2
have some irksome questions for him: Why had
he ignored posted regulations and driven down
the wash in the first place? Was he aware that
the vehicle’s registration had expired two years
before and had not been renewed? Did he know
that his driver’s license had also expired, and the
vehicle was uninsured as well? Truthful
responses to these queries were not likely to be
well received by the rangers. McCandless could
endeavor to explain that he answered to statutes
of a higher order—that as a latter-day adherent
of Henry David Thoreau, he took as gospel the
essay “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience” and
thus considered it his moral responsibility to
flout the laws of the state. It was improbable,
however, that deputies of the federal government
would share his point of view.
3 Gallien asked whether he had a hunting license. 7 7 2
“Hell, no,” Alex scoffed. “How I feed myself is
none of the government’s business. Fuck their
stupid rules.”
4 in 1988, as Chris’s resentment of his parents 85 46 2
hardened, his sense of outrage over injustice in
the world at large grew. started complaining
about all the rich kids at Emory.” More and more
75
of the classes he took addressed such pressing

social issues as racism and world hunger and
inequities in the distribution of wealth.85 46
5 eighty-five cents in loose change. “I don’t want 7 29 2

your money,” Gallien protested, “and I already
have a watch.”
“If you don’t take it, I’m going to throw it
away,” Alex cheerfully retorted. “I don’t want to
know what time it is. I don’t want to know what
day it is or where I am. None of that matters.”
6 McCandless explained to Burres that he’d grown 31 22 2
tired of Bullhead, tired of punching a clock, tired
of the “plastic people” he worked with, and
decided to get the hell out of town
7 “You could tell right away that Alex was 15 8 2
intelligent,” Wester-berg reflects, draining his
third drink. “He read a lot. Used a lot of big
words. I think maybe part of what got him into
trouble was that he did too much thinking.
Sometimes he tried too hard to make sense of the
world, to figure out why people were bad to each
other so often. A couple of times I tried to tell
him it was a mistake to get too deep into that
kind of stuff, but Alex got stuck on things. He
always had to know the absolute right answer
before he could go on to the next thing.”15 8
76
Appendix D
List of the Data Supporting Statement of Problem Number Three

Page Line Problem
Answer
1 On March 14, Franz left McCandless on the 29 31 3
life as well.
2 No man ever followed his genius till it misled 34 1 3
REMAINS
3 Still, Gallien was concerned. Alex admitted that 6 21 3
77
the only food in his pack was a ten-pound bag of

rice. His gear seemed exceedingly minimal for
the harsh conditions of the interior, which in
April still lay buried under the winter snowpack.
Alex’s cheap leather hiking boots were neither
waterproof nor well insulated. His rifle was only
.22 caliber, a bore too small to rely on if he
expected to kill large animals like moose and
caribou, which he would have to eat if he hoped
to remain very long in the country. He had no ax,
no bug dope, no snowshoes, no compass. The
only navigational aid in his possession was a
tattered state road map he’d scrounged at a gas
station.
4 While he was in town, he noticed a secondhand 24 5 3
aluminum canoe for sale and on an impulse
decided to buy it and paddle it down the
Colorado River to the Gulf of California, nearly
four hundred miles to the south, across the
border with Mexico,This lower stretch of the
river, from Hoover Dam to the gulf, has little in
common with the unbridled torrent that explodes
through the Grand Canyon, some 250 miles
upstream from Topock, From Topock,
McCandless paddled south down Lake Havasu
under a bleached dome of sky, huge and empty.
He made a brief excursion up the Bill Williams
River, a tributary of the Colorado, then
continued downstream through the Colorado
River Indian Reservation, the Cibola National
Wildlife Refuge, the Imperial National Wildlife
Refuge, On December 2, he reached the Morelos
Dam and the Mexican border.
5 After loading his few remaining possessions into 22 6 3
a backpack, McCandless set out on July 10 to
hike around Lake Mead, he managed to flag
down some passing boaters, who gave him a lift
to Callville Bay, a marina near the west end of
the lake, where he stuck out his thumb and took
to the road. McCandless tramped around the
West for the next two months, spellbound by the
scale and power of the landscape, thrilled by
minor brushes with the law, savoring the
intermittent company of other vagabonds he met
along the way. Allowing his life to be shaped by
circumstance, he hitched to Lake Tahoe, hiked
78
into the Sierra Nevada, and spent a week

walking north on the Pacific Crest Trail before
exiting the mountains and returning to the
pavement.
6 When he returned to McCandless’s camp and 36 38 3
launched into the selfimprovement in pitch,
though, McCandless cut him off abruptly.
“Look, Mr. Franz,” he declared, “you don’t need
to worry about me. I have a college education.
I’m not destitute. I’m living like this by choice.”
And then, despite his initial prickliness, the
young man warmed to the old-timer, and the two
engaged in a long conversation.

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A FINAL PROJECT

BACKPACKING LIFE AS A PROTEST AGAINST

Second Examiner/ second adviser:

Third Examiner/ first adviser:

Prof. Dr. Rustono, M. Hum

¾ How important it is in life not necessarily to be strong... but to feel strong.

Semarang, January 2010

Chairul Umar Sin

Key Words: modern life, backpacking, and society

Result after several findings. First, the implementations of backpacking in

V CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS .............................................. 46

1.1 General Background of the Study

smaller we have revolutionary information technology. It has helped people in

entertainment for recreation.

are: bureaucracy, disenchantment of the world, rationalization, secularization,

individualism, universalism, chaos, mass society, industrial society,

democrationism, hierarchical organization and so on.

Time is a limitation or a border of life’s schedule for people (Stewart, 2008,

well patterned but we still have unsolvable problems such as corruption,

inequality of life, injustice of laws and etc.

Money has a very important role in our life: we live in a world of

materialist values, where ownership of the most expensive objects seems a

something is essential to survive, it needs to be the main focus of life.

There is a bureaucracy in the modern society. One cannot exist in a society

Bureaucracy is applicable to any task or organization to handle it

administratively. It is a way of getting done with a high degree of efficiency.

means of controlling people. But the unintended consequence is that, once in

motion, bureaucracy cannot be destroyed. Weber pointed out its dominance,

threat to individual freedom and the spread of rationalism into every

hence, the “iron cage” of rationality (Weber, 109).

modern life. The search for meaning in modern societies encourages

pilgrimage to the sites of differentiation created by modernity and a search for

the ‘primitive’ and pre-modern cultures it has displaced (MacCannell, 1992a).

as sites of tourism consumption and distinction – a chance to see the past

before it disappears. Globalization not only increases the speed at which

sign of the progress of globalization, it is also an integral part of the

for difference still further (de Botton, 2002).

According to James Clifford (1997: 1), travel is arguably an integral part

of the postmodern ‘new world order of mobility’. Society as a whole is

of modernity. One of the cultural symbols of this increasingly mobile world is

trappings of the backpacker culture – banana pancakes, bars with ‘video

nights’ and cheap hostels (Iyer, 1988).

According to some authors (e.g. Westerhausen, 2002) growing numbers of

people who do travelling are reacting to the alienation of modern society by

adopting the lifestyle of the backpacker. Their nomadic existence is supported

by the increasing ease of international travel, a growing network of budget

be weighed down by cultural or physical baggage are features of travel

‘unchanged’ or ‘authentic’ cultures they want to visit. The backpacker is

therefore forced into adopting a nomadic style of travel in an attempt to avoid

many backpackers regard as an ‘authentic’ destination is one untouched by

other tourists (Timmermans, 2002).

Backpacking life itself is a nomadic life. It offers people unlimited

we do not have to wake up in early morning just to go to school or school, we

‘backpacker’ into the academic literature. Pearce’s analysis is primarily

concerned with motivational aspects, particularly related to extending one’s

to extend travel time. Most significantly, Pearce identifies a fourth theme

related to the emergence of a subculture focused on the pursuit of health and

Form of dissatisfaction or protest against modern society not only exist in