Comparing Lydia Maria Child And Henry David Thoreau

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Lydia Maria Child and Henry David Thoreau expose their private cultural realities, while challenging urban life through rural nature at Walden Pond and the urban streets in New York. Furthermore, Lydia Maria Child and Henry David Thoreau are both influenced by romanticism through transcendentalism, which relates how objects of the world are essentially only small excerpts of the all-inclusive universe. Although Lydia Maria Child and Henry David Thoreau are similar in their quest to challenge superficial urban life and individual simplicity, each author respond differently to their vivid surroundings and celebrating togetherness or with individual loneliness. Lydia Maria Child and Henry David Thoreau both challenge simplicity in cultural realities, …show more content…

For example, Thoreau wanting to learn the true meaning to living life states in Walden, "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life (235).” “Furthermore, Henry David Thoreau lives out two years of his life with simplicity and truth at Walden Pond. For instance, Thoreau states, “I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life (235).” Consequently, Henry David Thoreau believed nature could free an individual by forcing a person to develop individual thought. In order to achieve a happier existence, Thoreau responds to simplifying human presence on earth, while mastering self-reliance. Thoreau argues, “most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.” Consequently, the author relates how simplicity is best compared to the technology that makes life seem simple, actually making life more complicated. Psychological and physiological necessities are what keep people pursing life, and luxuries hinder people from reaching full potential in life. Thoreau offers solutions to problems of lost souls living with the distractions of life within the realm. For example, the author states,

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