Month: February 2020

In this chapter, I was able to get a better understanding Thoreau’s attitude toward society. He begins by stating that he likes company like any other man.  He talks about the visitors who pass by his home in the woods, mostly focusing on a 28-year-old Canadian woodchopper and post maker, whom he doesn’t name. He describes him as a simple-minded, quiet, natural and solitary happy man. Thoreau mentions that the man was so immersed  in his “animal life”,  he was unsure whether he was “wise as Shakespeare or as simply ignorant as a child”. Thoreau seems to respect the man’s simplistic life, but still sees him as inferior, due to his lack of education. Even though the man was in touch with nature, it still wasn’t enough to compare to Thoreau’s intellectual mind, according to him.

Thoreau talks very highly of the pond and nature surrounding in which leads me to believe that he enjoys spending time by it. On page 235 I find it particularly interesting when he says “The scenery of Walden is on a humble scale, and, though very beautiful, does not approach to grandeur, nor can it much concern one who has not frequented it or lived by its shore…”. To me Thoreau is saying that he sees the beauty of Walden pond but to someone who has never been there or spent any sort of signifigant time there, they will not see its beauty. I think this aligns with Thoreau’s attitude towards nature and society. I say this because he seems to love being out in nature by himself but does not believe that society can see his love for nature and just thinks he is strange for being out in nature by himself. Iwould tend to agree with Thoreau here because for some people they can see the beauty in nature while other can’t and would just think that it’s just a tree or in this case it’s just a pond of water.

In Visitors, Thoreau challenges the idea that physical state of solitude cannot coexist with companionship. Expressing a desire for social contact, Thoreau shares that he has designated “three chairs in [his] house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society” (Thoreau, 208). Thoreau suggests that he wants to have company despite his longing to be in solitude which required removing himself from society. Alternatively, guests seem drawn to fulfill the role of companionship that Thoreau craves. He even adds that “when visitors came in larger and unexpected numbers there was but the third chair for them all, but they generally economized the room by standing up” (Thoreau, 208). Thoreau strategically claims that a state of solitude and companionship can indeed peacefully coexist by placing these chairs within the walls of his small cabin. However, he argues that there is a particular ratio of voice volume to distance in which they can work together. He states that “loquacious” speakers should be in close proximity to each other while those who “speak reservedly and thoughtfully” should stand at a distance where “all animal heat and moisture may have a chance to evaporate” (Thoreau, 209).

Thoreau’s philosophy for solitude and companionship is “you want room for your thoughts to get into sailing trim and run a course or two before they make their port” (Thoreau, 209). In other words, thoughts demand a state of solitude just like humans before a conversation could arise; Thoreau states that thoughts need a “steady course before it reaches the ear of the hearer” and humans needing time for silence before they receive a message.

Though Thoreau speaks to his connection to nature and makes it clear that he prefers the solitude of the woods to the busy village, in this section of Walden Thoreau also touches on this idea of the need to go back into society for specific things. At the beginning of the section he speaks about coming back into the village to both hear and stir the gossip happening in the city. To me this speaks to the idea of how I like to enter into nature for an afternoon, maybe a few weeks, but not for much longer. I have not had the opportunity to go for longer; however, I feel that even though I love nature I would feel so disconnected with my various communities if I left to go into nature for much longer. Even if someone does not like society I feel that it is still human nature to want to enter back into society at some moments, even if it is just to hear some simple gossip. 

Later on in the section Thoreau also talks about his more physical needs, as he mentions needing to go back into town to pick up shoes from a cobbler. He later gets arrested, and speaks to not liking the village again; however, the village still provides him with something. Thoreau could not make shoes in the woods, and this need drives him out of the woods towards the village. No matter how self-sufficient someone wants to be in nature the needs that society has instilled within us have made it.

When reading this chapter, I got a good sense of Thoreau’s attitude towards society.  He said that he ventured into the village every one or two days,  to “hear some of the gossip”. He writes about the village and the people in it much like he writes about nature- careful observation through a lens of fascination.  He describes the multitude of signs advertising businesses and people’s houses as “dangers”, mentioning that he normally managed to avoid them. He seems to have had a negative view on society, in that it made him uncomfortable to be in the village for too long, and he would “escape” to the woods soon after entering. I do wonder, though, if he disliked being in the village so much, why he returned every day or so. Perhaps he was just emphasizing the difference between the woods and the town, and had a curiosity about the society just as he had a curiosity about nature.  He tells the story of how he got arrested for not paying his taxes during one of his town visits. He tells the tale in a very frank, unworried way, suggesting that he does not consider society and its rules to apply to him, or to be a threat to him. His overall view on society seemed to be that he enjoyed venturing in to observe the people and the happenings, but he much preferred to escape back to the woods. My attitudes are a bit dissimilar to Thoreau’s, but perhaps that is because I have lived in society for my entire life, and have not had a chance to live in the woods for a long duration of time. Perhaps once you experience the natural life, you too would consider society strange and fascinating.

Thoreau’s discussion of Walden Pond is rich with evocative and thought-provoking language. The language he uses reflects the scenes he’s describing. Surrounded by “celestial dews” and housing a “myriad of ducks,” he portrays the pond as a beacon of tranquility. Not only is Thoreau detailed in his physical descriptions, he also goes to great lengths to describe the pond’s nature or characteristics, taking the reader through its history as he sees it, focusing especially on the pond’s ancientness. 

On page 124 Thoreau gives a sense of Walden Pond’s age, discussing a narrow path along the shore that was likely “worn by the feet of aboriginal hunters.” On the page before, he even uses Biblical imagery to express the age of the pond, suggesting that it was likely there in all its glory when Adam and Eve were driven from Eden. Even when he describes his ax falling into the water, Thoreau urges his reader to understand the long and static disposition: he remarks that had he not disturbed it, it likely would have stayed in the same position—hilt up—until it eventually rotted.  

All of these references to Walden Pond’s history and how inevitably unchanging it is made me think back to McKibben, who shattered the longstanding notion of nature’s eternity. Thoreau’s language pints to his belief in the pond’s stability and steadfastness, where McKibben can’t help but notice abrupt changes in entire ecosystems. Although in a way Thoreau and McKibben have the same core principles— developing a deep respect for nature and all its inhabitants—they seem to view nature in completely different ways. This is to be expected, as Thoreau wasn’t aware of the extent that humans would wreak havoc on the planet, and it makes me wonder what Thoreau would think today. Would he still think of nature as a place of isolation if, as McKibben points out, there’s no new frontier and no corner of the world untouched by human influence? 

In the village passage Thoreau talks about two points that seemed to be linked to greed, or loss of self. The first half of the section describes shop owners who use ruthless or cold tactics to tempt consumers or visitors of said village. Then Thoreau talks about how easy it is to become lost on a path. Which I interpreted to allude to how easy it can be to keep working and moving forward through life without stopping to reevaluate oneself. And in the end Thoreau talks about how he leaves his houses unlocked. I believe the reason why he did this was to show hospitality or empathy for the traveler that found their way there. Also Thoreau spends a few sentences praising his practices.

Through Henry David Thoreau’s description and personal narrative of his experience with, and in nature, he strongly believed that all living things have rights that humans should recognize. He had a view that we all have a responsibility to respect and care for nature, rather than (unconsciously or consciously) destroy it. Not only did Thoreau believe we should respect nature, but he also viewed humans and living things as not being separate, but equal to each other. Humans do not hold superiority over other living things but coexist equally on the Earth. In mentioning Thoreau’s perspective on nature, it is evident that his attitude towards nature was it should be respected and recognized more. He sees that humans have fallen into this trap of consumerism in that people are never content with what they have and are constantly seeking for what the latest trend or fashion is. In Thoreau’s “The Bean Field” chapter, we see that he tries to debunk this idea of consumer society by showing his interaction with working in a bean field and how one can find content in even the simplest things.

A quote from “The Bean Field” chapter that exemplifies Thoreau’s contentment with the simple things around him is “I came to love my rows, my beans, though so many more than I wanted. They attached me to the earth, and so I got strength like Antaeus” (Thoreau, 219). Through Thoreau’s time working on the bean field, he gains an appreciation for his time spent working. He depicts this through his thoroughly descriptive writing about the steps he took, the emotions he felt, and what he observed around him in the field. In the chapter, Thoreau goes to mention “…I worked barefooted, dabbling like a plastic artist in the dewy and crumbling sand, but later in the day the sun blistered my feet” (Thoreau, 220). I think Thoreau’s choice to not wear shoes not only shows his desire to find a connection with nature but also to show he wanted to distance himself from being a part of the consumer society that he saw scattered across the United States. I think through Thoreau’s choice to be barefoot, he wants the reader to understand that if we took time to be outside and fully immerse ourselves in nature-whether that be working on a field barefoot or some other way-we would see that this need for more is more psychological than what we need in reality. The last quote that alludes to Thoreau finding contentment in purely plowing bean fields is “…and sometimes the man in the field hear more travellers’ gossip and comment than was meant for his ears: ‘Beans so late! Peas so late!” -for I continued to plant when others had began to hoe,-the ministerial husbandman had not suspect it” (Thoreau, 221). Here, we see that while Thoreau takes his leisurely time planting his beans (showing an appreciation for each step), the farmer next to him has this pressure to have a quick turn over from planting to harvesting his beans. This goes back to Thoreau’s idea of people needing to respect and recognize the nature that is around them. Rather than the farmer taking a similar approach to Thoreau in planting, he has made it almost a mechanized process where the thought and appreciation for the crops are lost.

Henry David Thoreau focuses a great deal of his chapter “Visitors” on a French Canadian woodchopper and post-maker. Thoreau admires the man’s simple worldview and practical reaction to lofty philosophical ponders. The lumberjack is simple-minded, and Thoreau cannot decide whether he is more like a child or a wise man. He eventually comes to the conclusion that by nature keeping him as a child, the man retains his genuineness and avoids the over-sophistication of society. Society often clouds the humanity’s natural calling to enjoy nature without exploitation and contributes to the selfish and misguided obsession with social and financial advancement. Thoreau goes into extreme detail to describe the man and his relationship with him. While this may appear excessive, it allows Thoreau’s audience to understand him better and how he sets an example that Thoreau believes society should follow.

While reading the chapters from Wednesday readings written by Henry David Thoreau, I was fascinated at the level of detail in which Thoreau describes his surroundings.  In the chapter, The Bean Field, Thoreau tirelessly describes his field. Beginning with his description of the fields sheer size, which I believe to be an egregious exaggeration at seven miles, all the way to his observation of the rituals of the town. Thoreau leaves nearly nothing up for interpretation. Through his description, Thoreau allows the reader to in a sense to feel as though they are developing a connection to the land which he is describing. While reading, I felt as though I was on his farm in the bean field. I could surround my self with the vast field, which Thoreau describes surrounded by birds and other wild animals. That is until the serenity is interrupted by the gunshots from the direction of the village.

Description is essential to one’s ability to understand and visualize the landscape. One must strike a balance to most effectively interest the reader. While I felt as though Thoereaus’ description was thorough, I felt as if it detracted from my experience because it left nothing up for interpretation.  It is, in fact, important to note that not all readers like their content delivered to them in the same way. Some people may appreciate Thoreau’s description as it allows for the reader to not have to think about the setting and simply focus on the words in the text. The benefit of this is in fact what will allow people to experience the world from a different perspective from their own.