This passage consists of McCandless’s own words, written on his last postcard to Wayne Westerberg before he goes into the Alaskan wilderness. I now walk into the wild.” Into the Wild, 69 If this adventure proves fatal and you don’t ever hear from me again, I want you to know you’re a great man. It might be a very long time before I return South. “Please return all mail I receive to the sender. In allowing himself to forget about the responsibilities one has in any close relationships, he ignores the harm done to those who love him when he risks his safety and his life. In this passage, he is just leaving Ron Franz, who spends the next year or so waiting for his return, living by his tenets, while McCandless ignores the responsibilities and bonds of intimacy by going into the wilderness, where he only has himself to account to. During these two years, McCandless doesn’t contact his sister, with whom he was very close, and while he meets many people and becomes close to a few, he always makes sure to maintain a certain distance. This passage illuminates McCandless’s deep problems with intimacy, which are very central in his ultimately fatal two-year quest for meaning and peace.
And now he’d slipped painlessly out of Ron Franz’s life as well." Into the Wild, 55 He’d successfully kept Jan Burres and Wayne Westerberg at arm’s length, flitting out of their lives before anything was expected of him. He had fled the claustrophobic confines of his family. "McCandless was thrilled to be on his way north, and he was relieved as well-relieved that he had again evaded the impending threat of human intimacy, of friendship, and all the messy emotional baggage that comes with it.