“Walden” or “Life in The Woods”
A View-Changing Book
Introduction
According to the Library of Congress, one of the books that shaped America is “Walden” or “Life in The Woods” by Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau’s love of nature and his advocacy of a simple life have had a large influence on modern conservation and environmental movements. This novel is a manual for self-reliance and continues to be a topic of conversation and included in lesson plans in classrooms across the United States 167 years after its original publication. Thoreaus novels and many others have shaped this country and have influenced the way people think and view the world, “Walden’s” legacy lives on over a century and a half later and will continue to as a way to teach nonconformity, self-reliance, and individualism.
About the Author
According to an online biography, Henry David Thoreau was born on July 12th, 1817 in Concord, Massachusetts. He was the third born out of four, his father was a businessman and his mother helped raise him and his three other siblings.
Henry entered Harvard at 16 years old and was thought to be a serious but unconventional scholar. He studied Greek, Latin, and many modern languages in college, and he also took other classes in a wide variety of subjects. Due to financial and (mental) health reasons, Thoreau took a break from school but graduated in 1837. As a Harvard graduate, there were 4 main career paths he could go into, ministry, law, medicine, or teaching. Since two of Thoreaus siblings were teachers, he decided that was a good option. Thoreau eventually quit for different reasons and when his brother became sick but began working for his father instead.
In college, Thoreau was exposed to the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, after college, Emerson became Thoreau's mentor and friend. Emerson invited Thoreau to work with him as a handyman and assistant. During this time, Emerson helped Thoreau in his ambitions to become a writer, he helped Thoreau get some of his first works, like essays and poems, published in The Dial, a transcendentalist magazine/journal.
Thoreau got permission to build a home on a piece of land that Emerson owned on Waldon's pond. He wrote his first book here, “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, and later wrote “Walden”. This book was very successful but didn't get a lot of attention until much later.
About the Book
“Walden” or “Life in the Woods”, is one of the most well-known non-fiction books in America, it was written during the two years Henry Thoreau stayed in his self-built cabin on Walden pond. This novel was an account of Thoreau’s time he spent on Walden pond. Henry’s intention was to live simply and only having the necessities in order to survive.
In Walden, Thoreau explains how he built his cabin and finished it in the spring of 1845, he moved in later that same year at the beginning of July. He scrounged up materials from numerous places in order to build himself this cabin. He speaks of the multiple encounters he had with a variety of people during his time at the cabin. He would also take frequent trips back to Concord, to see friends and conduct business. On one memorable trip, he gets arrested and spends a night in jail for refusing to pay a poll tax as a form of protest.
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He discusses nature, neighboring creatures, and the passing seasons as time goes. At one point Thoreau says in “Walden”, “We need the tonic of wildness…At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed, and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.” In the winter he watches the animals prepare for winter, and the birds migrate as preparation as well. He studies the snow and ice and later thinks about the earlier residents who were there before him and were long gone at that point.
Thoreau maps Walden pond and neighboring ponds, he also measures the depths. He discusses how locals described Walden as bottomless, but as he measures and discovers it is no deeper than 100 feet, he believes the pond is a symbol of infinity people need in their lives.
Thoreau “returned” to civilization in September of 1847. In the last chapter of “Walden”, Thoreaus' narrative observations give way to the untapped potential within humanity. Thoreau encourages us to “meet” our lives and live fully.
Thoreau’s writing style in the novel is filled with metaphor and filled with sentences that pile on observation and reflection. Some major themes presented in Walden include self-reliance, simplicity, solitude, nature, transcendentalism, and spirituality.
Legacy
Thoreau’s influence did not just reach every part of the United States, but corners of the world as well. 200 years after his birth and we hear about him in history classrooms and read about him in literature and English classes. We interpret his way of life and look up to him as someone who did not allow himself to conform to society’s standards and someone who questioned everything.
According to an article in the Smithsonian magazine by Kat Eschner, Thoreau “…fundamentally influenced twentieth-century protest.” His essay “Civil Disobedience” which was influenced by his night at the jail, was the most influential to civil rights leaders like Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Anti-nazi resisters in Denmark adopted this essay as a manual of arms. Emma Goldman, an anarchist, used Thoreau’s ideology to oppose the WW1 draft, and it was also used by WW2 pacifists. King’s acknowledgment of the essay also inspired Vietnam War protestors to use the essay's ideas.
Critics of Thoreau, like Kathryn Schulz, who in her article in “The New Yorker”, describes him as “self-obsessed: narcissistic, fanatical about self-control, adamant that he required nothing beyond himself to understand and thrive in the world.” She misses Thoreau’s whole point in all his works and his point for going off the grid when he lived on Walden Pond. He did not care for people’s opinions or standards, it wasn’t a way to live.
Thoreau’s legacy lives on a century and a half after “Walden” and “Civil Disobedience”, and I don't doubt he will continue to influence people for centuries more.
Works Cited
Eschner, Kat. “Martin Luther King and Gandhi Weren’t the Only Ones Inspired By Thoreau’s ‘Civil Disobedience.” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 12 July 2017, www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/martin-luther-king-and-gandhi-werent-only-ones-inspired-thoreaus-civil-disobedience-180963972/.
Gavin, Jennifer. “Library of Congress ‘Books That Shaped America’ Available on Amazon.” The Library of Congress, 22 Jan. 2013, www.loc.gov/item/prn-13-005/.
“Henry David Thoreau Biography.” Henry David Thoreau Online, www.thoreau-online.org/henry-david-thoreau-biography.htm.
Schulz, Kathryn. “Why Do We Love Henry David Thoreau?” The New Yorker, 12 Oct. 2015, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/19/pond-scum?intcid=mod-most-popular.
“Walden Quotes by Henry David Thoreau.” Goodreads, Goodreads, www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/2361393-walden-or-life-in-the-woods.
