ipl-logo

Analysis Of Why I Went To The Woods By Henry David Thoreau

1285 Words6 Pages

Why I Went to the Woods by Henry David Thoreau is a piece of literature taken from the book Walden that discusses Thoreau’s desire to experience life and it's meaning by living by the most simple terms possible. Thoreau lived off the land, built his own home, hunted and fished his own food. Through these things, Thoreau experienced how life is lived without luxury and only with the raw basics. Although his passion for the natural world shows through his writing his goal is not to persuade others to follow in his footsteps by going out and living in nature. Thoreau wanted others to follow him by living their best life which would be achieved by following their passions and the things they enjoy. Other works by Thoreau include Civil Disobedience, Poems of Nature, Life Without Principle and many more. …show more content…

It was his lifestyle. Henry David Thoreau lived from 1817 to 1862, a time with technology as advanced as cameras, the bicycle and dynamite. Shortly after his death in 1876 came the telephone. One hundred and fourty-two years later, the telephone has advanced from lines and dials to touch screens and voice control. Why I Went to the Woods is a piece of writing that is many a times the view of modern day Americans engulfed in the constant cycle of the technology takeover. Thoreau went to the woods to live and live deliberately. Living deliberately entails living consciously and intentionally. Thoreau’s intent was to live without regret of not living enough. In today’s society the focus is on living through others with a constant need for validation. Thoreau first published this piece of literature in 1854, 164 years

Show More
Related
519 Words | 3 Pages

Chris McCandless looked up to Henry David Thoreau’s ideas in his Walden excerpt. John Krakauer went on to make McCandless’ journey a novel of its own. However, Chris McCandless and Henry David Thoreau’s ideas on how one should live their life didn’t always compare as much as contrast. Thoreau does not like the outdoors as much as Chris does, “I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one” (Walden).

Read More
525 Words | 3 Pages

He suggests that you might look around yourself and really take into consideration as to how you are spending your short time you’re given in this life. Much like Chris McCandless, Henry David Thoreau looks around him and finds himself to be displeased. To quote Thoreau, “ 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.” Much like McCandless, Thoreau thought very little of money, jobs and other things of the civilized world. Henry Thoreau concluded that to live, not much is needed.

Read More
886 Words | 4 Pages

1) Thoreau is a quite unusual guy that wants to be isolated from civilization/human society due to the reasons that he believes should be obtained by every civilian. Thoreau wants to move to a place away from people but a place where there is nature around. Wild nature that isn’t touched by humans and that they would make. Thoreau wants to leave human society because he believes that there is something wrong with civilization for him. He believes that the world is moving too fast, and technology is growing faster.

Read More
489 Words | 2 Pages

(Walden) This belief quotes relates McCandless belief of living deliberately. This belief connects them for going into the woods. McCandless’ and Thoreau’s belief supports themes of a true Transcendentalist.

Read More
188 Words | 1 Pages

At this point in the narrative he tells readers about an experience he had while observing a woodchuck in the woods while on a walk. He then tells in detail how he wanted to eat this woodchuck in a brutal way. This thought process he was having while observing this animal brought him a better understanding that human beings still have a wild instinct inside of themselves. Which he respected the idea and acknowledged that these instincts still occurred within himself. This experience supported Thoreau belief that hunting/obtaining knowledge on nature was important at an early age.

Read More
441 Words | 2 Pages

In the chapter titled Where I Lived, and What I Lived For from Henry David Thoreau’s novel Walden, the author utilizes rhetorical strategies such as imagery and tone to convey how the distractions that accompany a progressing civilization corrupts society. Since he is a transcendentalist, his argument encapsulates the same principles of becoming free from the binds of society and seeking harmony with nature. He emphasizes those ideals when he states that “[he] went to the woods because he wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if [he] could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when [he] came to die, discover that [he] had not lived”(276). In other words, he wanted to escape from society and live

Read More
1287 Words | 6 Pages

Henry David Thoreau stated in Walden 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... I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life” (“What I Lived For 59). The transcendental lifestyle, as explained by Thoreau, is structured by the beliefs of purifying the mind and body from the corruption of modern society and its materialistic ideals. Embracing the spiritual aspects that nature provides allows us to grow physically and intellectually as a human, and ultimately finding our individual purposes in life. Both the book, Into the

Read More
1691 Words | 7 Pages

Life on the road is a commonly chosen path many individuals are pushed into taking as a result of the many overwhelming stresses in society, family, and life. These individuals find themselves jumping from job to job, settlement to settlement, to wandering the depths of nature’s wilderness and barely surviving on the little that they have. Living life on the road is a passage individuals take to find themselves, what they want to do in life, and find what the many meanings of life may be. A representation of an individual living life on the road can be found in Jon Krakauer’s book, Into The Wild. The book revolves around a college graduate named Chris McCandless who is plagued with the stresses of finding a career path that meets the criteria

Read More
578 Words | 3 Pages

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.

Read More
923 Words | 4 Pages

He wrote about how technology and new lifestyles were continuously replacing what nature had established. He pointed out how nature was the window for people to find their own identity, which was fogged by the changes in society the industrial revolution had caused. Then, he continued to elaborate on how pure nature truly was by stating that all living things survive and live because of nature. Thoreau believes that society had lost itself in the tangles of its discoveries, and points to the solution of going back to

Read More
470 Words | 2 Pages

Where there is Energy: there is life Having Energy means having life yet we are running out of fuel. How are we going to survive if our energy sources are depleting. We must make a change. Confucius and Henry David Thoreau would argue upon whose responsibility the stewardship of natural resources would depend on, but both would agree that either the individuals, or a society should take action.

Read More
1159 Words | 5 Pages

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).

Read More
783 Words | 4 Pages

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”).

Read More
643 Words | 3 Pages

In Henry David Thoreau memoir, Walden , chapter two, Where I Lived, and What I Lived For ,Thoreau explains why, “ I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life.” Thoreau uses the appeal of pathos to display to the audience his declaration of living simplistic all the way cut down to the necessities with figurative language and syntactical choices. Thoreau breaks down this chapter into two sections where he lived and what he lives for, as the name of the chapters. In Where I Lived, starting off on the first line, “AT A CERTAIN season of our life we are accustomed to consider every spot as the possible site of a house, ” Thoreau uses a paradox, and irony, to state when one is looking for a house, one considers every possible land space to build/buy a house; now it might not seem true, but when you’re looking for a place to live, one does take into account every available property. Ironically, Thoreau himself, is looking for a house and has, “...surveyed the country on every side within a dozen miles.”

Read More
575 Words | 3 Pages

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).

Read More

More about Analysis Of Why I Went To The Woods By Henry David Thoreau

Related Topics

Open Document