Analysis Of Henry David Thoreau's 'Life In The Wild' : Chapter 6

I am sitting in my family’s living room, idly. Something that is a rarity for me now. There are not many thoughts going through my head, in stark contrast to nowadays. I am arguing with my older brother to switch the channel to something relatively interesting and, more importantly, something my siblings and I can collectively agree upon, without having our parents to tell us to keep quiet. We eventually come to an agreement, a reluctant one, due to our older brother using the role of the eldest sibling to his advantage, on the science channel. It is showing a documentary of sorts on the expanding vastness of space being discovered due to ever improving technology.

Henry Thoreau loved the simplicity of living in the wilderness, just as much as McCandless did, however he loved just to stay put. Thoreau wanted to uncage himself from the outside world and the interferences it had with him living a “full” life. Thoreau thought

In Walden, Henry D. Thoreau presented a radical and controversial perspective on society that was far beyond its time. In a period where growth both economically and territorially was seen as necessary for the development of a premature country, Thoreau felt the opposite. Thoreau was a man in search of growth within himself and was not concerned with outward improvements in him or society. In the chapter entitled "economy," he argued that people were too occupied with work to truly appreciate what life has to offer. He felt the root of this obsession with work was created through the misconstrued perception that material needs were a necessity, rather than a hindrance to true happiness and the

The excerpt Walden, by Henry David Thoreau, is a piece that explores the purpose of life, especially if it isn 't lived to the fullest. Thoreau starts by sharing the meaning and value of life. His idea of his personal achievement was to live life and die with a sense of peace and knowledge that he did not waste a single moment. He wanted to live life while being true to himself regardless of whether he would find life to be cruel or a wonderful place, and this was a risk he was willing to take. In a modern sense we are intrigued by technology. Although those in favor of technology may say that the new devices and applications do not affect human interaction and our way of living we are, are unable to see that, even in a room filled with people, there is an isolation barrier and an inability to live life to the fullest.

Henry David Thoreau goes to live in a forest for a few years and writes about the philosophies and ideas he learns through experience in an excerpt called Where I Lived and What I Lived For. Thoreau argues how life will be of much better quality if you reduce all the unnecessary luxuries from your life; according to Thoreau living the simple life is in fact luxurious. Thoreau employs the rhetorical strategies of compare and contrast, analogy, and aphorisms to demonstrate how technology hinders our ability to live a simple life.

This political cartoon ties into my theme since it shows how the man is stressing over the news and thoughts and how he must relieve himself from it all. Not only that, but it also ties into the passage Why I Went to the Woods by Henry David Thoreau. This can be proven as it is seen in the passage when the author says that the character would mine and burrow their way through the hills in front of them. With this being a metaphor, the author uses figurative language as he explains how the character in the passage is trying to get away from all of their bad thoughts, trying to leave all of his stress behind but the stress just continues to pile up, just like a hill. This also ties in with my Theme and my political cartoon since they all show

His parents, who believed their son was in college, quickly became aware of his absence after seeing his vacant home and months of mail, which were redirected to their house by Chris. They instantly got in contact with Chris’s rented house manager, but “By then Chris was long gone. Five weeks earlier he’d loaded all his belongings into his little car and headed west without an itinerary. The trip was to be an odyssey in the fullest sense of the word, an epic journey that would change everything”(22). Without warning McCandless left, starting his journey across the country to escape and find himself in nature. Chris, motivated by the urge to explore himself and the United States, left on a legendary adventure which would change him and the people he met along the way. Chris’s traits of exploration, thrill seeking and motivation are expressed in both Tolstoy and Stegner epigrams. Chris is prepared to leave his peaceful life in search of a true purpose for himself, and to live like no ordinary person would. These traits Chris expresses are similar and inspired by Tolstoy work, which was found with the remains of

Throughout our country’s history, important figures have questioned how to play a role in confrontations and have practiced freedom of speech rights for justice. In the two articles, “Civil Disobedience” by Henry David Thoreau, and “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King, Jr.; both speakers focused on challenging social and political complications for the better of the future, country, and the government. “Civil Disobedience” by Thoreau, Henry David follows the author detaching himself from the government due to it favoring the majority based on the powers the certain group possesses and its stance on slavery. It, also, declares that the government is most optimal when it has the least amount of power over its people. The article, “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by King, Jr., Martin Luther, writes to defend his visit to Birmingham based on racial discrimination, segregation, church affiliations, and past conflicts. While both articles had a different approaches to challenging society and politics, “Letter from Birmingham Jail” was more effective in being presented than “Civil Disobedience” due to its diction, syntax, and tone.

The essay by E.B. White and the original work by Henry David Thoreau on "Walden" both reflect on the serenity of Thoreau's Walden Pond. Here Thoreau gives the tone of the simple pleasures of nature, " As I walk along the stony shore of the pond in my shirt-sleeves, though it is cool as well as cloudy and windy, and I see nothing special to attract me, all the elements are unusually congenial to me. The bullfrogs trump to usher in the night, and the note of the whip-poor-will is borne on the rippling wind from over the water. Sympathy with the fluttering alder and poplar leaves almost takes away my breath; yet, like the lake, my serenity is rippled but not ruffled. These small waves raised by the evening wind are as remote from storm as the smooth reflecting surface. Though it is now dark, the wind still blows and roars in the wood, the waves still dash, and some creatures lull the rest with their notes. The repose is never complete. The wildest animals do not repose, but seek their prey now; the fox, and skunk, and rabbit, now roam the fields and woods without fear." He is separated from the rest of the bustling world and happy that way. Thoreau's work was one that was thought provoking and solemn in tone and he had a simple yet detailed style that gave you a clear picture of the place he was living.

Busy highways, briefcases, and paychecks. These are few of many sights seen by individuals living the ‘American dream’. It has been established in one’s development to go to school, get good grades, then slip right into college where a degree is earned and a career is cast. In a matter of a few years, one’s life is dictated and the routine of the working man, or woman, is set. Happiness is illustrated through new cars, nice clothes, and the newest phone available on the market—but what is not seen is serenity within one’s self. Thoreau describes the ability to find the true sense and meaning of happiness without all of the materialistic barriers that seem to serve as its guidelines. In Thoreau’s Walden, people are proclaimed for not living life to its full ability by impassively going through everyday routines, mistakable importance of necessities, and the idea of individual purpose.

Though the reasons for their pilgrimages were different, transcendentalists emphasized journeys into nature. Henry David Thoreau, perhaps the most famous transcendentalist, wrote Walden on his time spent in the wilderness of Walden pond. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote Nature on his walks into the woods. Much of Emerson’s works were on intuition and self-reliance. Jeremiah Johnson is a modern movie that seemingly adopts the ideas of these transcendentalist authors into a narrative about a man who leaves civilisation for the mountain. All three characters had different stated motivations. Thoreau left to “live simply” (Thoreau). Emerson left for solitude. Though it never was stated directly, Jeremiah Johnson left to “Leave his troubles far behind”, with later hints to him being a deserter of the Mexican American War. But why is nature a staple of transcendentalism? Transcendentalism, unlike rationalism or empiricism, is founded on the belief that one can “transcend the data that we intake via our senses” using intuition (Dwinell). For Transcendentalists, nature is the path to truth, because it is there intuition rules above all.

In life one might often focus on ideas and concepts that do not matter. A false perception is created, and the individual forgets what truly matters to him. To say that “Our life is frittered away by detail” is an understatement (218). Henry David Thoreau’s literature from Walden clearly illustrates how one’s life can not only be frittered away by detail but rather almost destroyed.

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

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

Simple is the way of life that transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau advocated as the most fulfilling of all. Although sometimes irrational, Thoreau wanted a life that was more closely connected with nature in comparison with the majority of a rapidly industrializing America. He favored a more agrarian approach rather than a mechanized form of work and production, for that he believed was alienating man from his roots. Walden, one of Thoreau’s most famous commentaries on such a lifestyle, puts his ideology in perspective as he trod the forests of Concord, Massachusetts near Walden Pond. Living in and around a small cabin, Thoreau realizes that when one is with nature and nature alone, he sees life as immeasurable and unlimited in its