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Walden By Henry David Thoreau

615 Words3 Pages

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 …show more content…

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.

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Thus he escaped to Walden Forest, where he would live the resources. But in a normal journey through Walden, he encounters a humble village, where he wreaks havoc, expressing his philosophies while trying to convert the villagers. In a journal entry written afterwards Thoreau writes, “I might have run “amok” against

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Both Thoreau and Steinbeck stress that the individual has the power to live by their own morals, whether or not the government has laws that are built upon those ideals. People must find it in themselves to evaluate what is truly right and wrong. Government can never be fair unless its people has rights to govern themselves solely by their own

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During the Transcendentalist movement, Henry David Thoreau was a leading transcendentalist whose work focused mainly on nature and adventure. Walden, or Life in the Woods is an exceptional example of a story based on adventure. In Thoreau’s account of his life at Walden pond, he first states, “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.” Through this quote Thoreau explains that he was tired of the complexity of normal life and desired to go on an adventure to live simply. Additionally, Thoreau states, “I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life…,” which again reveals his motivation for new life by adventure and simplicity.

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In Walden and Resistance to Civil Government, Henry David Thoreau the author, uses the rhetorical strategies of personification, metaphor, and allusion/symbolism in the chapter “Conclusion” to describe what he learned from his experiment of living in Walden Pond. Thoreau’s main message of what he learned is to be undefined by what’s in front. Without the limits of conformity, humans have the capacity to achieve much greater and beautiful dreams and goals. Conformity is the boundary that doesn’t let individuals reach their great potential. Thoreau uses effective personification to imply the significance of following one’s dreams confidently.

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You will see Thoreau suggesting some pretty silly ideas, for example using a man to measure a pond. The main tone of Thoreau's story Walden is very exciting, and catches your eye quit well. Okay so now I do not have anymore information about Walden by Henry David Thoreau, therefore i will sit

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I analyzed the attitude of the author Henry David Thoreau, in the excerpt from the story Walden, I believe he has realized that a simpler life with less ownership of things is a better way to live. He used many examples of figurative speech and I believe his tone is moralizing, in that he is trying to convince others to appreciate the simpler way of life. In this part of the book I have examined, Thoreau explains why he has moved to a secluded place to live. Tells how he was worried about not knowing what life is really like so he moved away from others and the demands of life.

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Thoreau's mother describes him as “[a]lways [doing] the right thing, [e]ven if it’s wrong” (94). Collectively, direct and indirect characterization through these quotes clearly indicate how Thoreau seeks to make every decision based upon his own personal beliefs of its morality, independent from societal pressure, and to act upon it

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In this essay, Thoreau challenges the rules and laws instituted within America and feels that citizens must not simply follow the government blindly. In the eulogy, Emerson places emphasis that Thoreau would not conform to society and the ideologies that he held could not be

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Both Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau discuss the role of the individual in great lengths. In Emerson’s Self Reliance he expresses his frustration with the general population’s unwillingness to fulfill the duties of the individual. Emerson believes that everyone has innovative thoughts and ideas, but only true revolutionaries have the courage to share them with the world. In Thoreau’s Resistance to Civil Government he focuses on the rights of the individual as part of the State, or government. He believes that it is the people’s duty to disobey the laws if they are unjust.

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Thoreau poses questions that get the Americans to think about their conformity; “Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?” By asking this question and elaborating on what they could do to endeavor and amend the unjust laws, Thoreau insinuates that they should not be content to conform and obey them, they should flout against these unjust laws until they have triumphed! He uses this question to shout to all of the Americans conforming; to tell them to show their individuality and stand out. Another compelling question Thoreau asks is: “Why is it not more apt to anticipate and provide for reform? Why does it not cherish its wise minority?

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He wanted to prove that modern society was like a jail and he wanted to escape it so he was glad to succeed in living in the woods on his own with his own mind. His view on modern day society can be seen in his quote, “Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them” (Thoreau 9). During the time he spent in the woods, he thought a lot and had a lot of spiritual encounters. By the time he was getting ready to leave, he was proud of himself for being able to live so simply, alone and

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Civil Disobedience Henry David Thoreau’s famous essay, Civil Disobedience, is an interesting window into the mind of a staunch logician who supports morals above all else. As a transcendentalist, Thoreau supports the mindset of human perfection; that is, he believes that all humans can achieve a complete lack of sin. Unfortunately, Christians know this to be false; the only person who has ever achieved perfection was both God and man; however, this mindset is constantly seen in Thoreau’s essay.

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Thoreau explains that the state and societies prison “never intentionally confronts a man’s sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength” and furthermore that he “was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion” (1990). Therefore, Resistance to Civil Government is validating that prison is confinement and conformity, however, Thoreau will not be conforming to any such conformist state and neither should the reader. Thoreau finally reinforces that he is “not responsible for the successful working of the machinery of society” and that “if a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so man” (1990), Thoreau is explicating that society needs to be responsible for its self and become self-reliant, just as an individual should be, because it is the nature of the world and society and if it cannot live as such then it will not continue

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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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For Thoreau, it seems that being the person that he wants to be is his dignity. Also, he says that he wants “to front only the essential facts of the nature”, and does not “wish to live what was not life” because “life is so dear” (135). He describes this hope through the novel, and his dignity seems to be a principle for his life. Therefore, we need further investigate the questions: what the person he wants to be, and what life is.

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