In many reader's opinions, McCandless' ideals were rather out there and very inscrutable. One person said that, "Alex is a nut in my book- (Krakauer 71). Another reader of the first article printed about McCandless' death stated, "Personally I see nothing positive at all about Chris McCandless' lifestyle or wilderness doctrine."" (Into the Wild 71). Krakauer muffles these feelings in his book when he describes McCandless flaws. He makes them seem not as bad as they once may have seemed. On page 154, Krakauer states, " I was unlike McCandless in many important regards; most notable, I possessed neither his intellect nor his lofty ideals-. Krakauer's uses "lofty- as a description of McCandless' ideals. Lofty means exalted according to Dictionary.com. By using this particular adjective, Krakauer subtly tells us how he views McCandless and thus has his views unnoticeably rub off on his readers. If Krakauer had added the word "crazy- or "stubborn- before "ideals-, the entire attitude and effect of that sentence would be different. Even by using the word "intellect- and not the word "brains- or "smarts- Krakauer makes Chris seem very refined and intelligent which also adds another plus to our subconscious opinion of Chris.
Krakauer uses the absence of words to get his point across also. He has a tendency through out the book to barely touch the negative aspects of McCandless and his journey. Krakauer treats McCandless' negative aspects like a cold pool that is tested by a person's toes. When found too cold, the person retreats. When Krakauer finds the negativity start to get "cold-, he stops and retreats to embellish the positive. Krakauer does this by using his own words, but he also does this by using other's words. According to Krakauer, mostly everyone McCandless met was left with a good lasting impression of him. When remembering his times with Chris, a man by the name of Charlie recalls, "Nice guy, yeah, a pretty nice guy- (Krakauer 42).
