How Does Walden Impact The Rest Of The World

is able to improve his state of content, self-reliance and independence by a vast degree. It can be said that in a piece of literature such as “Walden”otherwise known as “Life in the Woods”, that there are numerous universal truths about removing oneself from the vortex of everyday monotonous societal living, and instead rather becoming part of something that is embedded in the natural state of living. Humans are beings brought about of nature, in that, at the very basic core of human essence and character, Thoreau’s argument concerning the state of affairs in which humans participate in, is heavily societally constructed. The truth of the matter is humans are primates, with natural organic origins, operating with simply a higher state of thinking than other primates. It is because of this, that humans are able to form complex communities, centers of trade and finance, houses of religion, amongst many other socially constructed institutions.

In the book Walden and Resistance to Civil Government the author Henry D. Thoreau uses rhetorical strategies to convey his attitude towards life. In the last part of the chapter, “Where I Lived and What I Lived For,” Thoreau uses logos, pathos, and ethos rhetorical strategies to give the reader his opinion. Thoreau’s opinion is that we should live freely and deliberately like Nature, avoid conformity and not be any more busy than what is necessary.

Thoreau reflects similar ideas in his description of Walden Pond, which serves as a kind of mirror for Thoreau's life. He determines the depth of Walden in several places and relates this to a man's character. He proposes that one could "draw lines through the aggregate of a man's particular daily behaviors and waves of life into his coves and inlets, and where they intersect will be the height or depth of his character"(319). Thoreau goes as far to say that one can approximate a person's depth of character by simply examining his surroundings. He states that a man with "mountainous circumstances . . . suggests a corresponding depth in him"(320) while "a low and smooth shore proves him shallow"(320). In addition, Thoreau describes "the life in us like the water in the river"(350). He expounds on this idea of water flowing down a river just as men's lives progress and flow. When the water runs its course and life comes to an end, Thoreau implies that a mark and memory remain as "far the inland bank which the stream anciently washed"(350). Maclean's concluding remarks are strikingly similar and exemplify Thoreau's belief. In the end, Maclean has outlived his family and friends but believes he can still hear their voices through the river. He writes, "Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's greatest flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time . . . . Under the rocks are the words, and some of the

The theme of Henry David Thoreau and his book Walden, is the effects of oppression. In his book he wants to get away from the industrial society. “Escape the trappings of industrial progress ” (Thoreau). He isolates himself from the outside world and chooses to live alone in the middle of the woods. He is living in a world of oppression because he is in isolation and believes in living life simply.

In Henry David Thoreau's Walden and Civil Disobedience, a problem is presented in the way in which we live our lives. Thoreau sees this problem and goes to Walden Pond to find the solution. Yet his solution is controversial in that it seems to propose actions that go against human nature. Thoreau's prescription for American desperation cannot be accepted by the masses for it is rooted in anti-socialism when humans are essentially social in nature. However, this conclusion is not entirely accurate, as one needs to explore Thoreau's entire solution and the intent of what he is saying in this work.

The chapter entitled “Conclusion” is a fitting and compelling final chapter to Thoreau’s Walden. Throughout Walden, Thoreau delves into his surroundings, the very specifics of nature, and what he was thinking about, without employing any metaphors and including none of his poignant aphorisms. However, placed among these at-times tedious sections, come spectacular and wholly enjoyable interludes of great and profound thought from a writer that has become extremely popular in modern America. His growth of popularity over such contemporary favorites as Emerson in our modern era stems from the fact that Thoreau calls for an “ideological revolution to simplification” in our lives. This

The final prominent transcendentalism theme expressed in Walden is the importance of experiences. Transcendentalists believed personal experience is how one learned. Literally, people learned everything the hard way. Thoreau demonstrated this clearly in the experiment of living in the woods for two years. He explains in Walden that he wanted to experience living simply for an extended period of time. Notice that Thoreau did not speculate, draw conclusions, or even ask someone who had tried it. The only way, in his mind, that he was going to learn about living simply was to undergo it personally. In speaking about life in the chapter, “Where I lived and What I Lived For”, Thoreau said,“…if [life] proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.”[4] He emphasized living and feeling everything to be able to understand life and its meaning.

Walden, by Henry David Thoreau describes the events and the thoughts that came to Thoreau all through his time living at Walden Pond in the eighteenth century. Henry David Thoreau was a poet and a theorist who experienced a life of ease so that he could create a relationship between nature, people, and God. His narrative in Walden depicted many themes, for example the significance of the natural world, the implication of development, the meaning of detail, and the connection between the body and mind. He also urbanized many theoretical ideas about living a simple and natural life, and

The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-Reliance is its aversion. It loves not realizes and creators, but names and customs.” This quote suggests that society expects people to give up the liberty of speaking for what they truly believe in order to keep society balanced. This makes a lot of sense because Transcendentalist have always been seen as outcast, due to the reason that they went against what society wanted of them and tried their hardest to become individual that didn’t follow protocol. In Where I lived, and what I lived for Thoreau stated, “it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail.” This quote really stands out to me because the way I interpret it is that Thoreau is making a criticism to mankind. He is telling us that we follow such strict protocols that we remake errors that could be avoided but because we are so infatuated by little details that don’t mean anything we don’t realize we are losing our individuality and becoming cardboard copies of each other to a point where we make the same errors over and over

For Thoreau, the escape from society was a way to deeply learn about himself and human nature. He writes, “Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself” (Thoreau 72). This simple way of life allowed Thoreau to analyze himself and tendencies within society. He explains the effects of this solitary life on a person: “In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness” (253). Thoreau was able to discover flaws in society. He states, “... men establish and conform their daily life of routine and habit every where, which still is built on purely illusory foundations” (78). Unlike Hester and Sethe, the societal norms Thoreau experiences are not painful punishments or dehumanizing treatment. However, the “opinion, and prejudice, and tradition, and delusion, and appearance, that alluvion which covers the globe … through poetry, philosophy and religion” (80), can still have a profound and often negative effect on individuals and society as a whole. Thoreau is able to overcome these societal norms because he separates himself from them. Thoreau explains of humankind, “When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence,-that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the

Thoreau wished to open the minds of many revealing the importance of nature “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” (Thoreau II). In the quote, Thoreau discusses how he learned to live deliberately in nature encouraging other members of society to do the same. He has learned that it can lead to harmonization with oneself, to

In Walden, Henry David Thoreau explains how a relationship with nature reveals aspects of the true self that remain hidden by the distractions of society and technology. To Thoreau, the burdens of nineteenth century existence, the cycles of exhausting work to obtain property, force society to exist as if it were "slumbering." Therefore, Thoreau urges his readers to seek a spiritual awakening. Through his rhetoric,Thoreau alludes to a "rebirth" of the self and a reconnection to the natural world. The text becomes a landscape and the images become objects, appealing to our pathos, or emotions, our ethos, or character, and our logos, or logical reasoning, because we experience his awakening. Thoreau grounds his spirituality in the physical

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately…to suck the marrow out of life…and not when I came to die, discover that I have not lived.” Thoreau, Walden. Thoreau was not just a radical yet respected thinker for his time, but now as well. Thoreau has a very important lesson and idea to teach through the workings of a pen. Thoreau’s works have greatly influenced our culture for over a hundred years. Thoreau’s ideas have definitely influenced contemporary ideas, but we have also developed our own separate ideas in the past century and a half.

In Walden, he questions the lifestyles that people choose. He makes his readers wonder if they have been chosen the kind of life that will really offer them happiness. Are they merely living a career or some other narrowly routine or is a worthwhile life being lived. Thoreau wonders if the truly valuable elements of life are being taken advantage of if a person is not living simply. If a person is so caught up in working or never having enough in life, one wonders, and satisfaction are difficult to obtain. As he states in the beginning Walden, "most men, even in this comparatively free country, though mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that is finer fruits cannot be plucked by them" (Thoreau 6). This means that people care more about the finer things in life and easier work instead of nature's gifts and hard work. Thoreau draws a parallel between others preoccupation with money and his own enjoyment of non-monetary wealth.

Therefore, Thoreau was ahead of his time as historians place the golden age of free thought from 1875 to 1914. This idea of personal freedom was not popular at the time “Walden” was only a marginal success. Afterward, in the Civil Rights moment the “Walden” became very popular with young Americans. The “Walden” inspired theses’ Americans to obtain real freedom with many examples. “I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these are more easily acquired than got rid of.” At the time most, parents expected their sons to take over the farm after the father became feeble. Therefore, most men were forced to work the farm instead of pursuing what they wanted. Instead a man becomes a machine that has no freedom. Therefore, have a feeling that his only function was to replace the old machine before him. “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation” Technologies today give us the illusion of heightened freedom. In the United States, we can obtain every material item we desire. Even though we still have the highest rate of anxiety disorders and depression in the world. Thoreau explains “Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.” To have true freedom and happiness you must face your demons. As material earnings can’t cover up your inner truth. Many Americans can’t handle the truth and this why we live a life of desperation. Thoreau