Krakauer connects Everett Reuss and Christopher McCandless with those seeking solitude at other times, in other places, by briefly discussing the Irish monks who inhabited an island called Pepos off of Iceland. These monks created stone dwellings in the fifth and sixth centuries, hundreds of years before the Anasazi built their desert structures in Davis Gulch.

Analysis

This is a second consecutive chapter in which the author attempts to illuminate McCandless’s character by comparing and contrasting it to those of his predecessors. In doing so, Krakauer further convinces the reader that although McCandless was unique, the impulses that drove him were not unprecedented. Nor are these impulses an exclusively American phenomenon. In fact, although rare, the drive toward solitude crosses continents and millennia, as the example of the Irish monks demonstrates.