In this essay, I will be comparing the ways in which the McCandless family are presented in Penn’s and Krakauer’s Into the Wild. The McCandless family, are described in different ways in the film and book of Into The Wild some are good and others are bad but between the McCandless family, there are many different comparisons and similarities.

In the film Into The Wild, Billie McCandless is presented as fake, where as, in the novel she is presented as a caring mother. An example that portrays Billie as fake from the film is when Chris comes to the fancy restaurant after his graduation, just before he comes inside and is just parking his car, she looks at his car with a disgust look because she saw his rubbish car between two fancy cars. She is also portrayed as fake because when he walks in and sits down, she tells him that she would like to buy him a new car and get him out of that junk yard car. This shows that she is fake because she only cares about how good her and her family look, rather than care about her sons feelings towards the car. In the novel, she is portrayed as a caring mother because she hand knits Christopher McCandless a blanket. We also know that she is a caring mother because if he really did despise his parents, then he wouldn’t have taken the blanket that Billie made for him to Alaska with him, but instead that was the only thing that he took from home which shows that he loved the fact that she made him this instead of buying him one which shows that she is caring. This shows that she is caring because he cared a lot for the blanket meaning that he had strong feelings for his mother, showing the reader than she cared about him enough for him to love her gift so much, also she is caring because she was worried that her son might be cold and she made him a blanket showing that she cares about his well being.

In the film Into The Wild, Christopher McCandless is presented as ungrateful, he is also presented as ungrateful in the novel. An example that portrays Christopher McCandless as ungrateful in the film is when the over the shoulder shot shows the reaction of his parents after they generously offered their son a new car and he aggressively shouted at them for making the offer. He could also be portrayed as disrespectful because instead of telling his parents calmly, he shouted at them which might have made them feel embarrassed because they were in a public restaurant. In the novel of Into The Wild, Christopher is also portrayed as ungreatful in the novel because when his parents offered him the car in the novel, there is a quotation that says ‘he later complained’. This quote portrays Christopher as ungreatful because instead of leaving the matter with a no thank you and continuing to enjoy their evening, he continued disrespectfully instead of thanking them for their kind offer but declining it kindly.