Chris didn't really hate his parents; in fact, going by
his letters (all sent before he vanished from their lives) he still loved and respected
them. However, he felt trapped by their insistence on living within societal boundaries;
he felt that they were pawns of society instead of individuals, and so their influence
restricted him from pursuing his own goals.
Both father and son were stubborn
and high-strung. Given Walt's need to exert control and Chris's extravagantly
independent nature, polarization was inevitable... He brooded at length over what he
perceived to be his father's moral shortcomings, the hypocrisy of his parents'
lifestyle, the tyranny of their conditional love.
(Krakauer, Into the Wild,
Amazon.com)
The similarity
between Chris's personality and that of his father was one of the problems; similar
people tend to grate on each other, especially when one is in direct authority. Chris
felt that his parents, while meaning well, didn't understand the ideals that he had
learned from Tolstoy or Thoreau, and that they were addicted to the pursuit of material
wealth just like everyone else in society. Instead of speaking with them and finding
common ground, he rebelled in passive-aggressive ways. When he finally started his
journey, he resolved to never contact them; sadly, he held to this resolution until it
was too late.
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