"McCandless had been infatuated with London since childhood. London's fervent condemnation of capitalist society, his glorification of the primordial world, his championing of the great unwashed- all of it mirrored McCandless's passions. Mesmerized by London's turgid portrayal of life in Alaska and the Yukon, McCandless read and reread The Call of the Wild, White Fang, "To Build a Fire," "An odyssey of the North," "The Wit of Porportuk." He was enthralled by these tales, however, that he seemed to forget they were works of fiction..."(Krakauer 44).

When questioning if McCandless is an inspiration or a fool, in this instance I would definitely have to lean towards him being a fool. The fact that a lot of inspirations and a lot of what McCandless bases his journey on is downright foolish. I understand him appealing to the ideals that London puts in his books. But to take the adventure and the journey in his stories is a little too much. He's going into one of these most dangerous places in the world. He's even doing it alone, with the minimal amount of equipment he can, and with no experience in an environment such as the Alaskan Bush. And if that isn’t bad enough, he also is trying to follow the journey of the fictional stories. So he’s going to of the most dangerous places in the world with some of the most dangerous animals in the world and basing all of it off of a fictional story. I hope everyone else can see what’s wrong with that.