Both Thoreau and McCandless view nature to be an escape and at the beginning, neither of them know or understand what they were about to embark on by interacting with nature around them. However, as time progressed their relationship towards nature changed. They both sought nature as a place to seek answers to their questions in life and believe that to achieve this, they would have to get down to the very basics and leave behind society's materialistic lifestyle.
For both McCandless and Thoreau, consider the tradition of idealizing the American wilderness experience.
Moving to the wilderness was a rising action to the greater things to be later explored for both McCandless and Thoreau. It was a place where both began to really connect with the purpose they sought for, even if it was vague to both of them in the beginning. However, I feel that being in the wilderness helped them both find peace that satisfied the inner purpose that they both did not know they were searching for in the beginning.
How might Thoreau's work have affected McCandless (if it does)?
I feel that assuming McCandless read Walden, Thoreau's idea and the experience he had moving away from civilization into the wilderness inspired McCandless to take the same step. That by reading it, he felt that it would help him deal with the ghosts that haunts him living among the society he grew up in namely his family and their friends. It suggested to him an escape route to which perhaps had he lived, he could return back to with better understanding and call a truce with.
I do agree a lot with your post they did give up everything and went into the wild to survive. But, what was the differences in their work? I feel that they have more similarities than they do differences but i feel it might be important to discuss both.
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