Chris McCandless is the main subject of Into the Wild. After graduating from Emory University, McCandless cut off contact from his parents, donated his remaining savings to charity, and embarked on a two-year adventure which culminated in a final, lethal trek into the Alaskan bush. McCandless is described as charismatic, idealistic, passionate, solitary, hard-working, and stubborn. He had attractive features and a small build.

McCandless had a relatively peaceful and happy childhood, but his relationship with his parents changed during a road trip in college, when he learned old family secrets. Though many characterize McCandless as naïve, arrogant, ignorant, insane, or suicidal, Krakauer argues that McCandless was motivated to take up a transient lifestyle and enter the Alaskan wilderness because of deep love for life, beauty, spiritual freedom, and nature.

Jon Krakauer is the narrator of Into the Wild. After writing an article about McCandless’s death for Outside magazine, Krakauer spent a year researching and then writing Into the Wild. Krakauer employs a number of points of view in telling McCandless’s story, frequently alternating between past, present, and future tense, as well as the first and third person. While the book focuses primarily on McCandless’s life, Krakauer writes two chapters in first person that from a personal account of a dangerous journey to Alaska.