“I love to be alone.” It is one of the shortest sentences in the entire chapter, and yet it has so much to say. However, its simplicity is what makes it so complex. It is so short, that the reader cannot fully understand what Henry David Thoreau means by that. There are two basic things it could mean. More specifically, the usage of the word “alone” could mean two things. One meaning is that Thoreau loves to be alone from society, meaning people. The other is that Thoreau loves to be completely alone, away from both humans/society as well as nature. However, that meaning of the sentence makes Thoreau seem quite paradoxal. If by saying “I love to be alone,” Thoreau means that he loves to be away from society, it actually fits in context with the rest of the chapter. He continually portrays his repulsion of society. Then again, it is more of a repulsion of the way society is today. Thoreau does not like the way society treats one another. In fact he believes that society forces us to change from who and what we really are. Thoreau says, ““Society is commonly too cheap… we have had ...
Throughout the passage many devices appear so the reader can have a deeper understanding of Thoreau’s attitude towards life. “Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito’s wing that falls on the rails. Let us rise early and fast, or break fast, gently and without perturbation;
As Henry is working for Waldo, he will take care of Edward who’s his son. After doing so one day, Henry is placed a very uncomfortable situation where Edward asks his mother Lydian if Henry could be his new father. Lydian then starts to want Henry gone but wants to do so by finding him a nice woman to settle down with. She tells him that and he says “you want to be a matchmaker, Lydian? Find me something innocent and uncomplicated. A shrub-oak. A cloud. A leaf lost in the snow” (Lawrence and Lee 78). By saying this Henry’s showing how he favors nature and its beauty. Adding to that, the teachings that Henrys share with others show the importance of nature. This is seen when Henry is trying to get Emily to see the fact that there’s more to Transcendentalism than being a tree-hugger and to look at nature to see its beauty. He explains this to her by telling her “what is a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on? Did you know that trees cry out in pain when they’re cut? I’ve heard them” (Lawrence and Lee 34). With this being said, Henrys explaining that in order to have a nice place to live, nature has to be taken care of. Overall, The Night Thoreau Spent In Jail focuses on the importance of
Stacy notes that this passage is related to "a person getting a sense of their self in relation to Nature." The Web material describes Thoreau’s practice of linking landscape and identity.
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.
Both Thoreau and McCandless had a deep appreciation for solitude in nature. In Walden, Thoreau explains how he’d “... love to see Nature that is so rife with life that myriads can be afforded to be sacrificed and suffered to prey on one another; that tender organizations can be so serenely squashed out of existence..” (Thoreau, Walden 238). While being on his “adventure”, Thoreau was able to observe all of the little things in nature, and appreciate all of the little things. While in civilization, one would not be able to notice such things because there are much too many people around to notice. While on his journey, McCandless “No longer.
Henry David Thoreau is a naturalist, and enthusiast of simplicity, he expresses his passion for simplicity in his essay “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For.” He wrote this essay after living in the wood, he contrasts simple life in the wood from busy life in the urban area, through this comparison, he attempts to convince his audience that simplicity is better.
This quote tells us the reader that Thoreau wants to be all by himself, a hobby that he integrates into his life. Thoreau would be against all of todays hobbies because they all follow a routine; and as said many of times throughout the essay, Thoreau is all against the ideas of having the same routine
Romanticism seeks nature as a means for obtaining knowledge, and while Thoreau heavily spends his time in the woods and around the pond by himself, he inevitably feels a sense of solitude. Solitude is not necessarily loneliness or intentional isolation of oneself. It is merely an acknowledgment of the fact that he or she is alone. Thoreau has his own thoughts about solitude in which he writes:
Henry David Thoreau wanted to express his thoughts to the world. He did so by writing Walden a book that gives insights on the world from Thoreau’s point of view. “Walden” gives valuable advice in all types of fields. It shows aspects of Thoreau’s personality and how he views the world. To the best of my knowledge, Henry has many characteristics that he expressed in this book. Most of what he wrote was impressive. Honestly, I was extremely enthusiastic about reading this. Initially, I thought it would be a book like Great Expectations. But my expectations were wrong. I did not think I would actually learn things. Surprisingly, it sparked motivation in me. I wanted to be more in touch with nature. It seemed like Henry David Thoreau had everything figured out. He was calm and thoughtful and he seemed to look at life in a different way. Being in solitude in nature must really get you in touch with your inner self. It allows you to look at your flaws and look at your talents. I was greatly intrigued by every page of Walden.
Thoreau conveys many points in his writing and a large recurring one is the state of society. As stated before, he believed that people are too focused on physical gain and modernization which leads them into desperation. He adds on to this belief later in the book asking that above all else whether it be money or fame he be given honesty (Thoreau 246). To Thoreau, the truth is more important than anything measurable in status. Thoreau believes that a minimalist lifestyle is a good lifestyle, similar to Mccandless. He speaks of how it is good that he can put all of his belonging in one pile in his yard because it removes the clutter from his life (Thoreau 85). He also says that his best quality in life is to want very little, because it keeps himself true to himself and keeps him from distraction. Thoreau also believes that every man should be one in himself not oppressed by the government. He says that everyone should be able to be themselves whether is is in accord with the government or not (Thoreau 240). He is essentially saying that the government should not be a part of people's life decisions only to maintain the
He contradicts himself when he states at the beginning of the chapter that he goes into town to hear some of the gossip but then he goes on to claim that people shouldn’t listen or spread gossip. Thoreau states that “[he] hardly ever failed, when [he] rambled through the village.” This statement was made to try and build Thoreau 's credibility, basically saying that he is doing a better job in life than everyone else in society. But at the very beginning of the chapter Thoreau states that “every day or two [he] strolled into the village to hear some of the gossip.” When Thoreau contradicts himself it lows his credibility instead of building it like he wanted to. He also proves my point on how someone can’t live their whole lives without hearing gossip and that not all gossip is bad. The reason Thoreau goes into town in the first place is to hear some of the news because he lives in the forest. He doesn’t have a clue on what 's going on from the outside of his home in the woods, like what 's going on the war, the weather, or even who was being elected for president. Thoreau had no choice but to take a step back into society and hear some of the gossip that he claims isn’t good for us. This is why I qualify his claim because a person can’t just step away from society completely and not ever hear some of the gossip thats going
Thoreau submerges us into the text through his language, thereby allowing us to come as close to his experience of solitude in nature as he allows. Author Lawrence Buell explains that, as "Walden unfolds the mock serious discourse of enterprise, which implicitly casts the speaker as self-creator of his environment, begins to give way to a more ruminative prose in which the speaker appears to be finding himself within his environment" (122). Buell explains that Thoreau invites us inside the text and allows us to see the images he sees and to feel the life around him. His strategy is to disengage us from the chains that society so elegantly places around our ankles, and allow us to return to where we are closest to our natural essence. This essence can only be found, according to Thoreau, by secluding ourse...
According to the statement, “Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate,” Thoreau believes that the basis for the success of any person is his/her own individual opinion of himself/herself. Thoreau is the perfect example of his own opinion, based on his time spent living a simple life at Walden Pond. The public had varied opinions of Thoreau’s lifestyle, and Thoreau even addresses some critics in his essay. However, Thoreau himself was very content with his lifestyle, and he believed that his simple lifestyle was far superior compared to the seemingly luxurious lifestyle of men, who actually are in debt and bound to a la...
In chapter two of Henry David Thoreau's Walden, entitled "Where I Lived, and What I Lived for", there are two themes that run throughout the narrative. The key theme that emerges continually is that of simplicity with the additional theme being that of freedom. Thoreau finds himself surrounded by a world that has no true freedom or simplified ways, with people committed to the world that surrounds them rather than being committed to their own true self within nature.
He enjoys his mornings and bathing in the pond. This is the source of a strength not experienced before by him, and Thoreau realizes that he is awakening new feelings and emotions. The beginning of the day is not just that, but actually the beginning of a new life for Thoreau. He criticizes society for the life it leads, which is “meanly, like ants.” He doesn’t hide his disappointment when he states that modern life “is frittered away by detail.” The new experiences at the pond make Thoreau advocate for a new type of life which is more akin to a joyful celebration of nature and of life itself. In Walden the reader is able to discern how Thoreau makes use of nature and aspects of life in his own process of discovery and self-growth. He understands that all creation exists in order to contribute to man’s quest for perfection and self-discovery. Thoreau claims that nature is nothing else but the endless source of physical and spiritual rebirth and invigoration to man. Everything in nature has spiritual value, full of symbols of the