At the top of p. To what extent do you agree with him? He argues that students should not "play life, or study it merely," but "live it. Are there any courses in your school that allow you to do this? What could you suggest to the administrators and teachers at your school that would allow you better to apply your studies to practical living situations?
Many of the qualities that made this farm attractive to Thoreau would have made it very unattractive to most real estate buyers. What were some of those qualities?
What does Thoreau's preference for these qualities say about the difference between his priorities and those of most people? We are often advised to make a commitment to relationships or to goals that are important to us. Yet Thoreau advises us at the bottom of p. It makes but little difference whether you are committed to a farm or the county jail.
Do you agree that such problems are good cause to be cautious about commitment? Compare Thoreau's description of the location of his cabin pp. Why do people seek such places of quiet retreat? What do they hope to find? How might experiencing such places alter our priorities? What do Thoreau and McKibben say about this? How often are you and your friends awake, by Thoreau's definition? On the bottom of p. How is it possible "to live what was not life"?
Give examples from people you know or have read about. A main theme of this chapter is misplaced priorities: Americans' preference for material rather than spiritual reality. What does Thoreau mean by the following: "As for work , we haven't any of any consequence" p.
Or again on p. What does Thoreau think villages should spend less on? More on? Does your town or city seem to share Thoreau's priorities? In the last section of this chapter pp. Which sounds does he value simply for the quality of the sound, and to which does he attach symbolic value?
What does Thoreau mean by the following comments: "I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude" p. Who are the "old settler" and "elderly dame" p. What qualities does Thoreau admire in the woodchopper, and why see es pecially pp. What limitations does the woodchopper have? To what extent does Thoreau see his life as a model for others to emulate? At the end of this chapter pp. Who was he glad to see and why? Which people gave him cause to worry, and why?
What was the practical value of his experience growing beans as a cash crop? He sold them to get rice. What was the symbolic value? What lesson in "ecology" the word had not yet been invented in Thoreau's day does the bean field teach Thoreau pp. He also tells of how less experienced townsmen who found themselves in the woods at night might easily get lost.
To Thoreau, however, getting lost was not a bad thing, because "Not till we are lost, in other words, not t ill we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves" p.
What shift in our usual priorities does this comment suggest? Thoreau introduces the symbolic mode at the end of his opening to the chapter, as he ta lks about fishing at night, when, he says, "I caught two fishes as it were with one hook" p. In what ways are the following qualities of Walden Pond symbolic of human qualities for which Th oreau thinks we should strive?
Its depth and the purity of its water p. In this chapter, however, he seems to reject the value of physical nature: "Nature is hard to be overcome, but she must be overc ome" p. The conflict between physical and spiritual priorities is a main theme of this chapter. What value does Thoreau think that physical activities such as hunting and fishing have pp.
What d oes Thoreau think is the danger of sensuality, and what solution to that problem does he suggest pp. How convincing do you find his solution to be, and why? But he also says that animals are all "beasts of burden" p.
What purpose or implied symbolic meaning do you think some of the animals that Thoreau describes mice, birds, otters might have in the larger scheme of things? What lessons seem to be contained in Thoreau's description of the following encounters with animals? The ant war pp. Again the pond is presented as an analog to the human condition. He does find the depth of the pond but seems to have mixed feelings about this factual evidence.
What is the value of b eing able to prove something as a fact? What, on the other hand, is the value of letting some things remain mysterious p. What do such questions have to do with our individual religious beliefs? Thoreau compares his measurements of the depth of Walden Pond to a way by which we might evaluate human ethical behavior pp. What does this comparison suggest about how we should judge ourselves, as w ell as other people?
The last part of this chapter concerns the practice of cutting blocks of ice on the pond to sell for refrigeration. See if any students have grandparents who remember actual "ice box" refrigerators from earlier in this century.
But the ice also has symbolic meaning for Thoreau. Examine the last several paragraphs of the chapter and discuss what that symbolic meaning might be. Explain how the following serve as symbols of resurrection: The thawing sand bank pp. To what extent does the st ory of the traveller in the swamp p. This chapter can also be viewed as Thoreau's prognosis for the reader's spiritual recovery, based on Thoreau's own experience living by the pond.
Discuss how the following passages suggest the possiblility of a favorable future: "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" p. Now put the foundations under them" p. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star" p. Before answering, consider the following passages from Walden: pp. Do you think it would be possible to do today what Thoreau did at Walden Pond? Both Thoreau in Walden and McKibben in his Introduction use spec ific technological innovations as examples of supposed improvements in life that might not be improvements at all.
Thoreau, for instance, discusses the railroad in the "Sounds" chapter, and McKibben focusses on television. Choose a twentiethcentury invent ion other than television and discuss how it has both improved our lives and how it might in fact have made our lives worse. After reading Walden, what ideas in it impressed you enough to make you want to change your life, and why?
What parts do you still disagree with, and why? Find a newspaper or magazine article that relates to an idea in Walden.
Explain the connection to your classmates. Have students identify ecological issues or projects around your school and town an d encourage them to participate in discussing these issues or completing these projects recycling and conservation efforts are obvious options here.
A PBS documentary titled "Affluenza" examines the modern malady of having more and enjoying it less; it also features Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin, two advocates of simpler living mentioned in McKibben's introduction.
For a fuller list of supplements, see pp. Robert Richardson offers a fascinating exploration of Thoreau's intellectual growth through a history of his eclectic reading in Henry David Thoreau: A Life of the Mind. The best critical studies of Walden for beginning students are F. One other unusual collection that could be useful is Henley and Marsh's Heaven Is Under Our Feet, a collection of brief tributes to Thoreau by not only authors and scholars, but also public figures and entertainers such as Jimmy Carter, Ted Kennedy, Jack Nicholson, and Whoopi Goldberg.
Anderson, Charles R. The Magic Circle of Walden. New York: Holt, Rinehart, Bickman, Martin. Volatile Truths. N ew York: Macmillan, Harding, Walter. The Days of Henry Thoreau. New York: Dover, The New Thoreau Handbook. Henley, Don and Dave Marsh, eds.
Heaven is Under Our Feet. Stamford: Longmeadow, Lebeaux, Richard. Thoreau's Seasons. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, Young Man Thoreau.
Matthiessen, F. New York: Oxford UP, It is easier to sail many thousand miles I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that 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.
He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him 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.
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Struggling with distance learning? Our Teacher Edition on Walden can help. Themes All Themes. Symbols All Symbols. Theme Wheel. Everything you need for every book you read. The way the content is organized and presented is seamlessly smooth, innovative, and comprehensive. Themes and Colors. LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Walden , which you can use to track the themes throughout the work. Related Themes from Other Texts.
Compare and contrast themes from other texts to this theme…. Find Related Themes. How often theme appears:. Where I Lived, an Similarly, in economic affairs he is almost obsessed with the idea that he can support himself through his own labor, producing more than he consumes, and working to produce a profit. Thoreau does not simply report on the results of his accounting, but gives us a detailed list of expenditures and income.
How much money he spent on salt from to may seem trivial, but for him it is not. Rather it is proof that, when everything is added up, he is a giver rather than a taker in the economic game of life.
In Transcendentalist thought the self is the absolute center of reality; everything external is an emanation of the self that takes its reality from our inner selves. This duality explains the connection between Thoreau the accountant and Thoreau the poet, and shows why the man who is so interested in pinching pennies is the same man who exults lyrically over a partridge or a winter sky.
They are both products of self-reliance, since the economizing that allows Thoreau to live on Walden Pond also allows him to feel one with nature, to feel as though it is part of his own soul.
Simplicity is more than a mode of life for Thoreau; it is a philosophical ideal as well. Thoreau looks around at his fellow Concord residents and finds them taking the first path, devoting their energies to making mortgage payments and buying the latest fashions. He prefers to take the second path of radically minimizing his consumer activity. Thoreau patches his clothes instead of buying new ones and dispenses with all accessories he finds unnecessary.
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