In chapter 12, we learn that Walt McCandless secretly carried on a relationship with his first wife Marcia,carter he was married to Billie and gave birth to Chris. How did this revelation affect McCandless?

After graduating from high school McCandless spends the summer alone on a road trip across the country, during which he discovers that his father secretly had a second family during Chris’s childhood. As Chris’s resentment towards his parents grows, so too does it towards the rest of the world, as he starts to, for example, complain constantly about all the rich kids at Emory. McCandless returns home and starts as a freshman at Emory, but his anger over this betrayal and his parents’ keeping it from him grows worse over time. Chris carries this burden which taints his view on life.