I think that Chris McCandless knew very well that he was inadequately prepared for his journey into the wild.  When Gallien offers him diverse amounts of supplies and advice, McCandless denies him every single time.  McCandless is on a mission, and he won’t allow his mission to be altered with additional help from other sources.  He is doing this himself, and he doesn’t want anyone’s guidance or permission.  It seems as if he doesn’t even care if he’s safe.  He’s putting a lot of trust in nature and in himself to assure his safety.  He isn’t taking precaution.  I believe he thinks that he has a possibility of survival, but I don’t think that he's even planning to live a long life.  I think he’s testing himself to see how long he is able to stay alive.

I think that Krakauer announced that McCandless’s decomposed body was found four months after he went into the wild to imply that the point of the story isn’t how long he could survive.  The message of this story isn’t even about survival at all.  At this point of the novel, I believe that it's about discovery. McCandless isn't testing his nature skills; he's searching for depth in his shallow world.  Krakauer sends out a very abrupt message to his audience to announce that this isn’t a story about life and death.  It makes me think of McCandless as a guy with a countdown, too.  This revealing will make me anticipate his death throughout the entire rest of the novel.

I was shocked by this S. O. S. letter, since I believed that McCandless was going to expectantly die.  I even thought that he was going to welcome death.  However, this letter implies that he indubitably wanted to be saved.  I thought that with going into the wild, he was accepting that he wasn’t going to last too long.  It was impressive that he lasted those four months, and I thought that McCandless had gone into the wild with that frame of mind, as well.  It confused me to realize that he wanted to stay alive.  I thought that he was abandoning civilization to die in peace, as well.  This letter defied that theory, though, so it leaves me curious to find why he’s going into the wild in the first place.  Why would he do something so rash if he was later in desperate need to be saved?  He was a smart guy—he should’ve seen this pain and death coming.