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Comparing Henry David Thoreau's Wisdom, Walden, And Withdrawal

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Wisdom, Walden, and Withdrawal

“...if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours,”( Thoreau 625). Henry David Thoreau shares his journey and experiences throughout Walden. Thoreau speaks greatly about the elements of self reliance and achieving goals. Several of Thoreau's lessons are still relevant in today's society, two of his fundamental ideas are that wisdom does not come from education and that loneliness is not the same thing as being alone.
Wisdom is not gained merely by time, but by meticulous studying and practice. Educators come in all forms, including books which teach us enduring lessons. Thoreau emphasizes that reading, “... requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object," ( Thoreau 214). Patience and time are required to obtain the most out of a book. Thoreau mentions that reading books must be done, “... as deliberately and reserved as they were written,” (Thoreau 214). The act of reading alone does not give us wisdom, it is how the information is understood and retained. Thoreau's ideals are still extremely prominent in today's society. Any book read must be analyzed to fully understand the material. Students and scholars everywhere …show more content…

Thoreau uses Walden to share his lessons and ideas which often oppose to the common cliches and concepts. Thoreau reiterates that “A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will,” (Thoreau 277). Being alone gives us the time to think and work. In today's society it is often overlooked to study and research while in absolute solitude. Students tend to text or listen to music while studying or learning which takes away from their experience. Taking time to ourselves leads to growth and change which strengthens our

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Throughout history there has been a constant, man’s desire to experience new things. Two men that come to mind are Chris McCandless and Henry David Thoreau. Both men shared a similar reason for traveling into the wild. The differences in their journey’s that led to McCandless’s death and Thoreau’s success is the preparation and approach to the journey’s. Even though Chris failed on his journey he still was very much like Thoreau wanting to leave society in search for enlightenment.

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The bold and brash approach on life by transcendentalists was truly an ambitious lifestyle. Such individuals like Henry David Thoreau, Chris McCandless, and Jon Krakauer have renounced all of their mainstream agendas to lead a more fundamental life, but not without the criticism other have faced. The actions portrayed in their novels demonstrate how important it is to incorporate others’ ideas when one’s own choices. As the world was in the midst of transforming, Henry David Thoreau yearned to yield away from the evolving world, as he considered them corrupt opportunists who are deprived of their true nature.

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I am writing this letter in response to the excerpt from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden that was recently included in your newspaper The Dial II. After reading the excerpt, I spent time analyzing the different philosophies that Thoreau portrayed in his essay and I came to the conclusion that I agree with some of his concepts but disagree with most. First off at the beginning of the essay, Thoreau states that “as long as possible live free and uncommitted. It makes but little difference whether you are committed to a farm or county jail.” I partially disagree with this quote because I think it is important that I commit myself to different tasks and duties in order to hold myself accountable.

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" Thoreau wants man to individually think for themselves, and to morally decide what is right and wrong: ‘self-individualism'. Both urge the importance of freeing from traditional

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How they blindly work without leisure and have grown ignorant to be able to grow (Thoreau 3). Thoreau believes that with self-reliance, we will be able to see the true meaning of what we are doing. Breaking off of ties that bind us down will allow us to be able to do what we do for ourselves.

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Henry David Thoreau was a philosopher, poet, and a very outspoken person about society. He discusses his opinions on how people should live in his essay “Where I Lived and What I Lived For.” Thoreau's philosophy of simplicity and individualism and self-sufficiency poses many dangers for communities as a whole. Although there are many setbacks, his philosophy is, however, still viable today. Thoreau strongly advocates self-sufficiency and individualism in this essay.

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“Men have become the tools of their tools.” -Henry David Thoreau Henry David Thoreau displayed his disapproval and rejection for the ideas of the industrial revolution through his essays by stating that nature was lost by the usage of technology and the industrial revolution caused humans to lose their self identity; this led Thoreau to believe that people had to go back to nature for purification. During Thoreau’s lifetime, he saw many technological advancements, which he believed to be detrimental towards nature. In one of his essays called Walking, Thoreau expands on how and people began lose their self identity and their old lifestyles which had given them their identity.

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Henry David Thoreau especially supported the interaction between man and nature. With his experiment at Walden, he addresses a modern concept known as minimalism, focusing on the way one must supply for himself with his basic necessities. His intentions were not to isolate himself, but moreso to separate himself from a life dependent upon others. Through his actions, he is able to criticise society and many of their needs.

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While in Walden, Thoreau pay himself to practice on learning from the nature, he kept learning by observing things like the snake in the freezing river and the fight between ants. All his knowledge got by himself which make it more impressive and unique. Francois said, “From the circumstances in which it is placed, mistakes its own character, until the truth is revealed to it by some holy teacher, and then it knows itself to be Brahme” (61). This told his own view about how he appreciated study on our own.

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Consequently, what Thoreau proposed was simplicity rejecting modern civilization to return to nature and let the individual to develop his/her highest possibilities. Thoreau not only made a critique of the modern society as Emerson did, but also he practiced his ideology: he experienced that life is better without crowd, luxuries and complexity. The transcendentalist poet spent two year close to nature. He lived at Walden Pond where he wrote entire journals recounting his experience. Thoreau is well known for his book “Walden” (1854).

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Henry David Thoreau is one of the primary promoters of the transcendentalist movement and has been inspiring people to take on the transcendentalist lifestyle ever since the mid 1800’s. Mccandless was an admirer of Henry’s philosophy but he wasn’t as fully immersed in his work and ideals as Thoreau was to his own. His intentions were not as closely aligned to the movement as Thoreau’s and the difference between these icons are clearly visible. Self reliance is one of the most significant components of the transcendentalism movement that Henry David Thoreau contributed to in his literary career. “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” - (taken from Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden”).

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In Walden, written by Henry David Thoreau, the author expresses the immense longing that we, as human beings, need to give up our connection to our ever-growing materialism in order to revert back to self-sufficient happiness. In Walden, the reader is able to infer that Thoreau feels as if we are becoming enslaved by our material possessions, as well as believes that the study of nature should replace and oppose our enslavement, and that we are to “open new channels of thought” by turning our eyes inward and studying ourselves. Thoreau feels that we are becoming enslaved by our material possessions. As stated in the chapter “In the Where I Lived, and What I Lived For”, Thoreau states that “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” (972).

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