I thought Krakauer's research methods were successful until the very end of the novel. Throughout the whole entire novel, Krakauer consistently interviews people that Chris McCandless had meet throughout his whole entire journey. A good place of this is in Chapter eleven when Krakauer interviews Chris's family. Krakauer discovers the history of McCandless's childhood and finds out that he was different compared to the other children. Chris marched to his own beat and did not like being told what to do. Whenever his father gave him advice, McCandless would always roll his eyes or argue. I believe Krakauer did a good job in researching McCandless's childhood because the reader got a better idea of what type of person he really was. The reader also discovered where McCandless's passion for the wilderness came and who he really admired.
At the end of the novel I thought Krakauer's research was a little sketch because Krakauer really wanted to know what happened to McCandless. He wanted to prove that anyone could make a simple mistake by unknowingly eat a rotten potato seed. Even though Krakauer had good intentions, I thought he was trying to make his research work. Initially when he first the seeds tested, the scientists said there was the seeds were not poisonous; however, when an article came out about how toxic the rotting seeds can be he wanted to make it work. Overall, I believe that Krakauer's research was well executed throughout the novel.
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I also think that Krakauer's methods for telling the story of Chris' childhood were very successful. In these examples he let other people who knew Chris tell of their interactions with him. This makes the narrative much more believable because Krakauer did not know Chris personally. His opinions of Chris were from the perspective of an outsider, who had already made up his mind about person Chris was. I also agree with you about your opinion of the end of the novel. That last chapter where Krakauer was trying to figure out what killed McCandless seemed a little awkward and forced. I could definitely tell that Krakauer wanted McCandless' death to be a preventable accident. Krakauer really wanted to clear Chris' name and in the process got too emotionally invested. However, I still think the novel was researched and executed well. While Krakauer may have at times let his emotions get the best of him- I too wanted to believe that Chris' death was not his fault.
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