working on a paper for school and one of the questions is to determine wheter or not mccandless is mentally sick through the book and to give specifics, and then it asks what a mental illness is.
Mental illness can be a pretty subjective idea. What exactly constitutes a mental illness isn't always agreed upon by everyone. I wouldn't call Chris's mental state an illness. He certainly had parts of his personality that were unique. I think he was naive to think he could survive in the wilds of Alaska with a fishing rod, an old gun and a tee-shirt. He also was cruel to his family for not letting them know anything about his life on the road. He, however, didn't have what most consider an overt mental illness.
