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Walden, Henry David Thoreau, critical analysis
Thoreau's perspective on nature
Walden, Henry David Thoreau, critical analysis
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Recommended: Walden, Henry David Thoreau, critical analysis
Walden by Henry David Thoreau is a classic in American literature. It is about a young Thoreau who decided to go and live in the woods in 1844 and his subsequent sojourner there for the next two years (pg. vii). It is chock full of good, simple, down-to-earth advice about how to live one’s life and enough eloquent language to keep a reader pondering for ages; however, the novel can be viewed in quite an unusual way: Through the lens of the world of biology. This way of viewing the novel presents a window into the past for biologists of today and allows the field to gain new insights through the writings of Thoreau, but what qualified him to give accurate information about the subject?
Henry David Thoreau, even before attending Harvard, was a naturalist at heart. As a younger man, he read Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Nature and afterwards was filled with the roaming thoughts of trees and animals. After finishing school, Thoreau worked for some time as a surveyor in Massachusetts (“Henry David Thoreau”). This line of work certainly affected the young man’s views on nature simply because he was out and about everyday viewing natural scenes and phenomenon firsthand and analyzing what he saw. Thoreau might very well have witnessed some natural process happening right before his eyes and asked the most common questions of “Why?” or “How?” in an effort to understand what was happening. While it isn’t clear what Thoreau might have seen or experienced as a surveyor to make him even more acute with his naturalist senses, it is known that after this time he became a very firm (and perhaps the second most famous) transcendentalist. Transcendentalism, led by Thoreau’s friend Ralph Waldo Emerson, focused on being able to see beyond what ...
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... writing a compendium for the ages that people would read in order to learn about his time alone; Thoreau understood what it meant to isolate the spirit in order to let it soar to new heights, but he did not realize what a scientific and biological wonder he was also penning at the same time in the same work. For Walden is not just a prize for the literary community, it is a prize, also, for the scientific community who can use the words Thoreau wrote nearly two centuries ago in order to understand our modern world in new ways that could change it forever.
Works Cited
"Henry David Thoreau." American Transcendentalism Web. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.
Thoreau, Henry D. Walden. Ed. Walter Harding. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1995. Print.
"Transcendentalism, An American Philosophy." Ushistory.org. Independence Hall Association, n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.
In this passage from the famous text Walden, the author Henry David Thoreau, a naturalist and transcendentalist, gives an account of his experience while living in isolation at Walden pond for two years of his life. While in isolation, he sought to enjoy life away from the hustle and bustle of society and live more simplistically without concern of the small things in life.
Thoreau, Henry David. "Walden." The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998. 2107-2141.
This excerpt from "Walden" by Henry D. Thoreau uses the literary element of word choice to express the importance of living simply and taking life slow. He uses bold and eloquent words to evoke a sense of peace and relaxation. He stresses the importance of living a life without unnecessary anxiety, for it causes nothing but stress. To understand and appreciate what is truly wonderful in life, we must forgo our rushing mindsets
When it comes to civil rights, there are two pieces of literature commonly discussed. One of these pieces is Henry David Thoreau’s persuasive lecture On the Duty of Civil Disobedience. In this work, Thoreau discusses how one must combat the government with disobedience of unjust laws and positive friction to create change. The second piece is the commonly known article Letter From a Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King Jr. This letter covers the ways in which peaceful protest and standing up against injustice can lead to positive results. Both pieces conveyed a similar message of standing up for what is right. The strongest rhetorical methods which Thoreau uses are allusions, logos, ethos and rhetorical questions. However, King’s use of
Norvell, Candyce. "Critical Essay on Walden." Nonfiction Classics for Students: Presenting Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Nonfiction Works. Ed. David M. Galens, Jennifer Smith, and Elizabeth Thomason. Vol. 3. Detroit: Gale, 2002. Literature Resource Center. Web. 31 Mar. 2011.
I awoke before the first rays of sunlight had passed through the dew-covered trees to the west today. It had rained the evening before, and the smell of wet leaves and grass was still lingering in the air.
Henry David Thoreau did not come from a wealthy and distinguished family (Olsen). However his family found a way to afford sending him to Harvard College. Thoreau barely passed the entrance exam into Harvard College (Clendenning). While attending Harvard he studied different languages and English Composition (Olsen). In 1836 he was forced to withdraw from school due to illness (Clendenning). During this time he met Ralph Waldo Emerson who eventually wrote to Harvard on Thoreau’s behalf in order to get financial aid (Olsen). Thoreau was finally able to return to college and graduated August 30, 1837 (Olsen). This fact is important because it tells what school Thoreau attended, the classes he took, and even previews the fact he met Ralph Waldo Emerson who would eventually become the role model for Thoreau’s own work. Transcendentalism was popular in the 1830s and 1840s. It lasted a mere 10 years. Transcendentalism is the Belief that knowledge is not limited to and solely derived from experience and observation (Clendenning). The solution to human problems lies in the free development if individual...
Henry Thoreau, like Goethe before him, showed a lasting interest in science. (2) He belonged to the Boston Natural History Society from 1850 onwards, and read widely in the current scientific literature. Beyond this, Thoreau was intensely interested in the scientific puzzles suggested by his own rambles around Concord, Massachusetts. In the years following Walden’s publication he observed more systematically and tested his hypotheses more rigorously, and published one of the first scholarly discussions on forest succession. Some historians rate Thoreau as one of the founders of the modern science of ecology. (3)
Henry Thoreau uses specific rhetorical strategies in Walden to emanate his attitude towards life. With the use of many strategies Thoreau shows that life should be centered around Nature. People live their lives not ever taking a second glance of what Nature does and has done for humanity and Thoreau is trying to prove his point. Humanity owes Nature everything for without it humans would be nothing.
Throughout Thoreau's “Walden”, he lays out many suggestions that some may take as significant or just senseless. Thoreau brings forth many concepts such as necessity, news, and labor which would benefit modern society. Yet, his views on isolation and moderation are unattainable in a technology-driven society. Even though the ideas that could benefit society may not be totally agreeable, the main reasoning for them are valid. Those ideas of isolation and moderation are clearly not possible in a world where people crave to be social and live to obtain any and everything they want.
Thoreau, among the most heralded writers of the North American continent, may have lived on his little as possible, but the grandeur of his writing style suggest quite the opposite. This does coincide with a key part of Transcendentalism - putting matters of the mind and spirit far above any materialistic preference. Chapter 5 of Thoreau’s memoir Walden explains his reasonings for isolation through several rhetorical strategies that emphasize the splendor of aloneness and nature.
To conclude, Thoreau believed that people should be ruled by conscience and that people should fight against injustice through non-violence according to “Civil Disobedience.” Besides, he believed that we should simplify our lives and take some time to learn our essence in the nature. Moreover, he deemed that tradition and money were unimportant as he demonstrated in his book, Walden. I suggested that people should learn from Thoreau to live deliberately and spend more time to go to the nature instead of watching television, playing computer games, and among other things, such that we could discover who we were and be endeavored to build foundations on our dreams.
Thoreau after graduating from Harvard College began to keep a journal that he filled with the many thoughts and observations that came to him on his daily walks about Concord (Richardson 7). These Journals would spawn into the many books that he wrote, the most prominent being Walden. Thoreau was a self-taught naturalist, who spent much of his time systematically studying the natural phenomena almost exclusively around Concord (Witherell and Dubrulle). His Journal contains these careful observations, such as the cycles of plants, of local water levels, and many other natural phenomena (Witherell and Dubrulle). These Journals help to impress the love that he held for nature. It is this feeling that has propelled him to be considered by many to be the leader of the environmental movement (Buell 171).
With the statement, “Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them,” Thoreau is saying that many people in the world, including the United States, are not able to enjoy life because they are too preoccupied with working and earning wealth to buy unnecessary goods. Thoreau believes that men only need four things to survive: fuel, food, shelter, and clothing. However, according to Thoreau, people still strive to obtain more and more unnecessary material goods. To obtain these goods, Thoreau writes, “He has no time to be any thing but a machine,” meaning that men are so busy working to make excessive money that work consumes their entire lives. Thoreau, on the other hand, ignores “factitious cares” such as excessive wealth, furniture, and a large home, in order to enjoy his life and not be forced to live his life as a machine.
Why do so few Americans not see all of the problems in society? Do they simply not care or are they not able to see them? With Thoreau's statement, "To be awake is to be alive", he implies that Americans have their eyes closed to these issues. They do not choose to overlook these issues but they simply pass them by because their eyes are shut. Some people are not able to grasp the concept in Thoreau's statement and find it to be foreign or subversive because it threatens the way the see the world.