Walden By Henry David Thoreau

In Walden’s last chapter, Conclusion, Thoreau brings his experiment to a close and summarizes many of the ideas that he brought up throughout the novel. He spends the majority of the chapter sharing his thoughts on how people should live their lives in order for them to be fulfilled. He also continues to vouch for his recurring motifs: truth and simplicity. Thoreau ends this chapter and the entire book by making one last attempt to make people take his advice and ‘wake up’. There are many and themes and ideas that Thoreau outlines in Conclusion; most of the ideas were touched on earlier in the novel, however Thoreau uses this chapter to fully develop and sum up his claims. His first claim in the chapter is that there is a whole universe just in one’s own mind and people should take time to explore themselves. He says, “...be a Columbus to

Every man is the lord of a realm beside which the earthly empire of the Czar is but a petty state, a hummock left by ice.” (Thoreau, 251) This is an overlapping theme in the novel; Thoreau wants people to look inwards to find fulfillment and unlock their mind. Another claim he makes is that people should find their own path in life and let their own wants and moral laws guide them. To support this idea he says, “I love to weigh, to settle, to gravitate toward that which most strongly and rightfully attracts me;-not hang by the beam of the scale and try to weigh less,-not suppose, a case, but take the case that is; to travel the only path I can, and that on which no power can resist me.” (Thoreau, 258) Along the lines of this idea, Thoreau also believes that people should, to the best of their ability, resist the conformity that society tries to push on them.