Walden What I Lived For Summary

Both Henry David Thoreau and Christopher McCandless ventured out into the woods to get away from the dreariness of everyday society and to find themselves. Only one lived to tell the tale. What was the fatal flaw of the man who didn’t continue on? The only way to find this is to analyze the differences and similarities between the two. McCandless, while embracing some of the same values as Thoreau, was ultimately a different man. While they led very contrasting lives in very distant times, both McCandless and Thoreau sought a type of freedom that can only be achieved when immersed in nature. Thoreau’s entitlement and cozy cabin in the woods is a far cry from McCandless’s constant struggle during his expedition, however, certain parallels

Thoreau galvanizes his reader into living self-dependently and being their own individual. A few ways of living with Thoreau’s virtues are to dabble with your life, and live without

An account of Thoreau’s experiences in his cabin during his retreat to the wilderness from society. Thoreau believed the Market revolution to be degrading to the Americans values and the Natural environment and that Americans should pace a life more attuned to the rhythms of Nature. Freedom lied not in the amount of goods accumulated but within.

The first strategy used by Thoreau is imagery that makes an ethos appeal, meant to plead to the reader’s conscience, ethics, morals, standards, and values. In this passage, Thoreau relates life to how free and undeterred Nature can be. He wants humans to live life without fearing the small things and just thrive inside the big picture. This passage uses Thoreau’s ability to persuade to appeal to the reader’s conscience, “Let us spend one day as

David Thoreau’s serious tone emphasizes the pleasure of living in the wilderness and observing nature. Thoreau’s serious and calm tone reflects on his time in nature; he chronicles his routine, his daily chores, and he connects this lifestyle to his own philosophy of life. He depicted nature in a positive tone, he had good things to say about both the phases of the day and the seasons of the year. He described the morning, “the most memorable season of the day”

To Henry David Thoreau, nature serves as a reminder to take a break from the fast paced style of life. Thoreau is a transcendentalist writer who isolated himself from society to live a life at his own pace. The title of his work, Where I Lived and What I Lived For, presents the purpose of his writing. Thoreau expresses where he resided and his reasoning for living there. He successfully achieves his purpose through the use of aphorisms and paradox. He begins his essay with direct and simple vocabulary that clearly states his purpose. He “went to the woods” in order “to front only the essential facts of life”. His destination and intentions are clear. His diction represent his way of thought where details are not needed. His use of aphorisms

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.

Henry Thoreau’s masterpiece, Walden or a Life in the Woods, shows the impact transcendentalism had on Thoreau’s worldview. Transcendentalism is a philosophy that asserts the primacy of the spiritual over the material. Transcendentalism puts the emphasis on spiritual growth and understanding as opposed to worldly pleasures. Thoreau’s idea of transcendentalism stressed the importance of nature and being close to nature. He believed that nature was a metaphor for spiritual enlightenment. A walk in the woods therefore was a search for spiritual enlightenment. One should look ‘through’ nature, not merely ‘at’ her.

In perhaps his greatest reflection, Walden, Thoreau states “be it life or death, we crave only reality.” The excerpt from pages 49 to 50 focuses on the quest for this elusive truth. Serving both as a call to action as well as an instructional guide, this passage takes readers through a cleansing of all the superfluities of life. He laments how life has corrupted the natural state of purity he was born with, but with intellect as his primary tool, he has tried to truly find himself. In this passage, Thoreau instructs his readers to discover their reality, and from this point, build a foundation to begin their own journey of self-discovery.

Thoreau left society and went into the woods because he wanted to live life to the fullest and learn what life had to teach him, while Chris wanted to leave his problems at home. Thoreau was living in solitude in the woods. He liked living in solitude because he didn’t have to change his way of life to make others happy. He was also able to do his own work and did not have to worry about other people. Thoreau was not lonely in the woods because he was connected to nature like a flower is. He wanted to learn everything that the world had to offer by living with simplicity and focusing on his “needs” instead of his “wants”. We know this because Thoreau said, “Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!” Thoreau went towards solitude and fully

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

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

David Thoreau Thoreau believed humans live their lives too complicated and society should believe in the power in nature. By simplifying our lives, it would help us understand life’s true meaning and value. Everything a person does in life has meaning to it. This demonstrates transcendentalism in the aspect of nature. Thoreau lived

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

Again in Walden, Thoreau wrote, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately” [1854]. It is quite strange that Thoreau had chosen to live in woods purposely. Perhaps one reason can be that he is a transcendentalist but one must not forget that he had discovered about the Walden Pond when he was deliberately living in the woods. However, another possible explanation can be that woods are not dominated or are controlled by anyone, nature lives freely in world. Therefore, a reader can