Walden by Henry David Thoreau Essay Example for Free

Walden by Henry David Thoreau Essay In a modern America where â€Å"liberal† means â€Å"amoral,† and â€Å"idealist† means â€Å"hopeless fool,† cell-phones â€Å"ring† to the tunes of Ashlee Simpson and Eminem; SUV’s growl and vomit fumes during rush hour; TV’s blast continuous images of sex and violence, reality and fiction combined in a way to fool and entice and unify all under the blanket of consumerist conformity. Peace is an abstract concept and quiet is for the dead. The world is fast, loud, scary, and smaller than anyone ever imagined. In these fearful times, conformity and resigned desperation are the king and queen. Individuality in American society is looked upon with suspicious eyes, as even feigned unity is preferable to sincere integrity. Even â€Å"freedom† has a new meaning, as leaders repeat it like a mantra to justify the latest horrifically comical atrocity. What better time than to disappear into the woods in the pastoral tradition of the transcendentalists? Walden Summary In an 1841 oration, leading transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson said, â€Å"The universal does not attract us until housed in an individual,† and nowhere is this truer than with his friend, Henry David Thoreau, who came embody an enlightened sense of natural awareness. At a remote lake on his friend Emerson’s property, found the inspiration for Thoreau to create his masterwork about nature, individuality, change—life. Walden captured the two years he spent on Emerson’s Concord property in the mid-1840s, Thoreau created a literary escape for those alienated by the ills of â€Å"proper† society. From the construction of his simple house, to his natural diet, to the woodland creatures that became his neighbors and lone company, every aspect of his simple existence is detailed. In eighteen chapters, Walden covers the world around Thoreau and his little cabin. With chapter titles like Economy, Where I Lived, and What I Lived For, and The Pond in Winter, the simple aspects of existence are the most important. Thoreau begins with a long chapter on Economy, in which he explains his incarceration for refusing to pay a poll-tax he saw as unjust, and his desire for simplicity. Thoreau spends a great deal of the book discussing the simplicity of Nature and how it relates to humanity, morality, and knowledge. While insight runs all through the book, Walden possesses some chapters that are particularly powerful and deal with knowledge, individualism, and friendship. In the chapter Reading, Thoreau explains the importance of books saying, â€Å"To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires training such as the athletes underwent the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object. † This quote is very important because Thoreau is saying that reading is not an easy task, but it also requires lots of practice and training just as athletes undergo. Throughout the chapter, Thoreau states how everyone should read books, and modern humans could end up like pygmies and manikins. â€Å"No wonder that Alexander carried the Iliad with him on his expeditions in a precious casket† (Thoreau). To Thoreau, reading and knowledge are the keys to civilization. In the chapter on Solitude, Thoreau explains how being alone is not at all a bad thing. â€Å"But for the most part it is as solitary where I live as on the prairies. It is as much Asia or Africa as New England, I have, as it were, my own sun and moon and stars, and a little world all to myself. † Thoreau does not look at solitude as being something bad or a punishment, but looks at it as if it were a gift. When he says that he has his own little world all to himself, it makes readers ponder their own solitude. To Americans in the twenty-first century, the concept of solitude is relatively foreign, but as described by Thoreau, it makes it more desirable. In the chapter Visitors, Thoreau talks about how having people around is just as good as being in solitude. â€Å"I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. When visitors came in larger and unexpected numbers there was but the third chair for them all, but they generally economized the room by standing up. † When Thoreau said that he wanted to keep things as simple as possible, he meant it, offering only three chairs to his visitors. Thoreau says that it was amazing how he could fit twenty-five to thirty people in his tiny house, and how that brought him and all of his visitors closer together. â€Å"I could not but notice some of the peculiarities of my visitors. Girls and boys and young women generally seemed glad to be in the woods. They looked in the pond and at the flowers, and improved their time. † (Coleridge) Negative Criticisms Walden is required reading for many high school students unfamiliar with the things Thoreau discusses in the book. He explained the importance and necessity of reading, he showed how being alone is usually a good thing, and he also showed how great visitors can be. While many high school students appreciate visitors, reading and solitude are things they avoid. Today a majority of high school students do not read books because it is considered â€Å"boring,† and with todays technology, no one has to read. With news and TV, someone or something else often reads to most people. Despite the fact that many people in modern America do not read, Walden is still read by many reluctant students who would rather be online or on the phone. Thoreau defends his book against those who read and fail to understand what they are reading: â€Å"It is not all books that are as dull as their readers. † The people who might find the insights of Thoreau and the desire for the simple life boring, are in fact boring thinkers. Some others may find Thoreau’s distrust of modern civilization misplaced, as many find the progress of the industrial and computer revolutions to be ideal for humanity. The idea of sacrificing that for a rough life in the woods may seem ludicrous. Someone like Thoreau may be seen as a crazy hippie or mountain man, and today’s world favors the engineers, entertainers, and the high life. Society has not simplified one bit in the last one hundred fifty years, and this could signify that Walden has had little real effect on American culture. However, this is not the case in American literature. Positive Criticisms Few question the importance of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden in American literature. Thoreau’s descriptions of life in its simplest and most idyllic continue to inspire conservation efforts and serve as a testament to the value of Nature. From the construction of his house in the thick of the New England woods, to his diet, and to the woodland creatures that became his neighbors and lone company, every aspect of his simple existence is elegantly detailed. Much of his reverence for Nature leads contemporary Americans to believe Thoreau and Walden to be exclusively environmental and conversationalist, but those truly enamored with Thoreau and his transcendentalist ideals know better. Walden retains a timeless wisdom, reminding readers the value of smelling the proverbial roses. â€Å"Our life is frittered away by detail†¦ Simplify, simplify† (Thoreau 89). Whether in the throws of the Industrial Revolution as Thoreau, or in the era of ambitious terrorism and open-ended declarations of war as modern humans, details create confusion. Humans forget about life while they live it, often concerned mainly with conformity. â€Å"Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer† (317). Perhaps, the strongest issue put forth in the book is that of individuality, as themes of self-reliance and stoicism run throughout the work. Individualism, the importance of the individual, self-reliance, and personal independence is one of the leading characteristics of the era of Romanticism. Henry David Thoreau wrote about individualism and demonstrated his belief by the way he lived. Living at Walden Pond, standing up to his government, refusing to pay a poll-tax to a government with which he viewed as corrupt are examples of his fierce independence and individuality. Thoreau is a stellar example of what individuality can produce. A worthy goal is to make the effort to devote oneself to thought and work, to in fact nurture ones own individuality, rather than becoming lost in the mainstream of life. This will allow greater individuality and diversity to complement current day society. The true secret to Walden’s success and timelessness is that Americans still make the same mistakes and take the same things for granted as they did 150 years ago. Everything still applies, in nature and man. Only the details have changed. Technology still marches on; war still looms large over the landscape; America continues to grow and spread its influence, for better or worse. In the case of Thoreau, for better, at least according to George Eliot who said, â€Å"we have a bit of pure American life (not the go a-head species, but its opposite pole), animated by that energetic, yet calm spirit of innovation† (Eliot 46). In modern America, where the go a-head species lead us blindly into an abyss, it is the voices of Americans like Thoreau: peacefully simple. Perhaps, Emerson said it best when he eulogized his friend, â€Å"No truer American existed than Thoreau† (Emerson). And, there have been few books that have been more American than Walden. Conclusion Thoreau went to the woods to get to the most basic facts of life and to appreciate and enjoy everything about these most basic facts. Thoreau viewed the woods in particular, and Nature in general, as a teacher of life and living. Thoreau believed that the simpler his life became the greater his opportunity to appreciate life. Thoreau did not want to allow society to determine that which he knew as life. To live an existence based on the common experience of others would be as to neglect ones own experience. Individualism and an appreciation for nature and solitude do not necessarily mean living as a hermit. Thoreau believed that in order to truly appreciate life, to understand and experience life as ones own life, it is necessary to quiet the mind of all the surrounding trappings of society. To this day, Walden serves as one of the greatest examples of the benefits of living the simple life. References Coleridge, S. T. , (1969). The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. ed. Kathleen Coburn, Princeton: Princeton UP. , 6: 30. Eliot, G. (1988). â€Å"Review of Walden. † Critical Essays on Thoreau’s Walden. Ed. Joel Myerson. Boston: C. K. Hall Co. , 46. Emerson, R. W. (8 Dec. 1997). â€Å"The Eulogy of Henry David Thoreau. † RWE. org – The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Accessed 29 Jan. 2007 from http://www. rwe. org/pages/eulogy_of_thoreau. htm Thoreau, H. D. (2004). Walden: A Fully Annotated Edition. Ed. Jeffery S. Cramer. New Haven: Yale University Press. (Original work published 1854)