Where I lived and What I lived For – Henry David Thoreau.
Henry David Thoreau
Amateur
naturalist, essayist, lover of solitude, and poet. Thoreau was a student and
protégé of the great American philosopher and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson, and
his construction of a hut on Emerson’s land at Walden Pond is a fitting symbol
of the intellectual debt that Thoreau owed to Emerson. Strongly influenced by
Transcendentalism, Thoreau believed in the perfectibility of mankind through
education, self-exploration, and spiritual awareness. This view dominates
almost all of Thoreau’s writing, even the most mundane and trivial, so that
even woodchucks and ants take on allegorical meaning. A former teacher,
Thoreau’s didactic impulse transforms a work that begins as economic reflection
and nature writing to something that ends far more like a sermon. Although he
values poverty theoretically, he seems a bit of a snob when talking with actual
poor people. His style underscores this point, since his writing is full of
classical references and snippets of poetry that the educated would grasp but
the underprivileged would not.
Summary
Thoreau
recalls the several places where he nearly settled before selecting Walden
Pond, all of them estates on a rather large scale. He quotes the Roman
philosopher Cato’s warning that it is best to consider buying a farm very
carefully before signing the papers. He had been interested in the nearby
Hollowell farm, despite the many improvements that needed to be made there,
but, before a deed could be drawn, the owner’s wife unexpectedly decided she
wanted to keep the farm. Consequently, Thoreau gave up his claim on the
property. Even though he had been prepared to farm a large tract, Thoreau
realizes that this outcome may have been for the best. Forced to simplify his
life, he concludes that it is best “as long as possible” to “live free and
uncommitted.” Thoreau takes to the woods, dreaming of an existence free of
obligations and full of leisure. He proudly announces that he resides far from
the post office and all the constraining social relationships the mail system
represents. Ironically, this renunciation of legal deeds provides him with true
ownership, paraphrasing a poet to the effect that “I am monarch of all I
survey.”
Thoreau’s
delight in his new building project at Walden is more than merely the pride of
a first-time homeowner; it is a grandly philosophic achievement in his mind, a
symbol of his conquest of being. When Thoreau first moves into his dwelling on
Independence Day, it gives him a proud sense of being a god on Olympus, even
though the house still lacks a chimney and plastering. He claims that a
paradise fit for gods is available everywhere, if one can perceive it: “Olympus
is but the outside of the earth every where.” Taking an optimistic view, he
declares that his poorly insulated walls give his interior the benefit of fresh
air on summer nights. He justifies its lack of carved ornament by declaring
that it is better to carve “the very atmosphere” one thinks and feels in, in an
artistry of the soul. It is for him an almost immaterial, heavenly house, “as
far off as many a region viewed nightly by astronomers.” He prefers to reside
here, sitting on his own humble wooden chair, than in some distant corner of the
universe, “behind the constellation of Cassiopeia’s Chair.” He is free from
time as well as from matter, announcing grandiosely that time is a river in
which he goes fishing. He does not view himself as the slave of time; rather he
makes it seem as though he is choosing to participate in the flow of time
whenever and however he chooses, like a god living in eternity. He concludes on
a sermonizing note, urging all of us to sludge through our existence until we
hit rock bottom and can gauge truth on what he terms our “Realometer,” our
means of measuring the reality of things
Analysis
The title of this chapter combines a practical topic of
residence (“Where I Lived”) with what is probably the deepest philosophical
topic of all, the meaning of life (“What I Lived For”). Thoreau thus reminds us
again that he is neither practical do-it-yourself aficionado nor erudite
philosopher, but a mixture of both at once, attending to matters of everyday
existence and to questions of final meaning and purpose. This chapter pulls
away from the bookkeeping lists and details about expenditures on nails and
door hinges, and opens up onto the more transcendent vista of how it all
matters, containing less how-to advice and much more philosophical meditation
and grandiose universalizing assertion. It is here that we see the full
influence of Ralph Waldo Emerson on Thoreau’s project. Emersonian self-reliance
is not just a matter of supporting oneself financially (as many people believe)
but a much loftier doctrine about the active role that every soul plays in its
experience of reality. Reality for Emerson was not a set of objective facts in
which we are plunked down, but rather an emanation of our minds and souls that
create the world around ourselves every day.
Thoreau’s building of a house on Walden Pond is, for him, a
miniature re-enactment of God’s creation of the world. He describes its
placement in the cosmos, in a region viewed by the astronomers, just as God
created a world within the void of space. He says outright that he resides in
his home as if on Mount Olympus, home of the gods. He claims a divine freedom
from the flow of time, describing himself as fishing in its river. Thoreau’s
point in all this divine talk is not to inflate his own personality to godlike
heights but rather to insist on everyone’s divine ability to create a world.
Our capacity to choose reality is evident in his metaphor of the “Realometer,”
a spin-off of the Nilometer, a device used to measure the depth of the river
Nile. Thoreau urges us to wade through the muck that constitutes our everyday
lives until we come to a firm place “which we can call Reality, and say, This
is.” The stamp of existence we give to our vision of reality—“This is”—evokes
God’s simple language in the creation story of Genesis: “Let there be. . . .”
And the mere fact that Thoreau imagines that one can choose to
call one thing reality and another thing not provides the spiritual freedom
that was central to Emerson’s Transcendentalist thought. When we create and
claim this reality, all the other “news” of the world shrinks immediately to
insignificance, as Thoreau illustrates in his mocking parody of newspapers
reporting a cow run over by the Western Railway. He opines that the last
important bit of news to come out of England was about the revolution of 1649, almost two centuries earlier. The only current events
that matter to the transcendent mind are itself and its place in the cosmos.
Summary
One of the many delightful pursuits in which Thoreau is able to
indulge, having renounced a big job and a big mortgage, is reading. He has
grand claims for the benefits of reading, which he compares, following ancient
Egyptian or Hindu philosophers, to “raising the veil from the statue of
divinity.” Whether or not Thoreau is ironic in such monumental reflections
about books is open to debate, but it is certain that reading is one of his
chief pastimes in the solitude of the woods, especially after the main
construction work is done. During the busy days of homebuilding, he says he
kept Homer’s Iliad on his table throughout the summer, but only glanced at it
now and then. But now that he has moved in not just to his handmade shack, but
into the full ownership of reality described in the preceding chapter, reading
has a new importance. Thoreau praises the ability to read the ancient classics
in the original Greek and Latin, disdaining the translations offered by the
“modern cheap” press. Indeed he goes so far as to assert that Homer has never
yet been published in English—at least not in any way that does justice to
Homer’s achievement. Thoreau emphasizes the work of reading, just as he
stresses the work of farming and home-owning; he compares the great reader to
an athlete who has subjected himself to long training and regular exercise. He
gives an almost mystical importance to the printed word. The grandeur of
oratory does not impress him as much as the achievements of a written book. He
says it is no wonder that Alexander the Great carried a copy of the Iliad around
with him on his military campaigns.
Thoreau
also urges us to read widely, gently mocking those who limit their reading to
the Bible, and to read great things, not the popular entertainment books found
in the library. Thoreau gradually extends his criticism of cheap reading to a
criticism of the dominant culture of Concord, which deprives even the local
gifted minds access to great thought. Despite the much-lauded progress of
modern society in technology and transportation, he says real progress—that of
the mind and soul—is being forgotten. He reproaches his townsmen for believing
that the ancient Hebrews were the only people in the world to have had a Holy
Scripture, ignoring the sacred writings of others, like the Hindus. Thoreau
complains the townspeople spend more on any body ailment than they do on mental
malnourishment; he calls out, like an angry prophet, for more public spending
on education. He says, “New England can hire all the wise men in the world to
come and teach her, and board them round the while, and not be provincial at all.”
Thoreau implicitly blames the local class system for encouraging fine breeding
in noblemen but neglecting the task of ennobling the broader population. He
thus calls out for an aristocratic democracy: “[i]nstead of noblemen, let us
have noble villages of men.”
·
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essayist, poet, and the leading figure of Transcendentalism.
Emerson became a mentor to Thoreau after they met in 1837. Emerson played a
significant role in the creation of Walden by allowing Thoreau to live and build on
his property near Walden Pond. There is an appropriate symbolism in this
construction site, since philosophically Thoreau was building on the
Transcendentalist foundation already prepared by Emerson. The influence of Emerson’s
ideas, especially the doctrine of self-reliance that sees the human soul and
mind as the origin of the reality it inhabits, pervades Thoreau’s work.
However, whereas Thoreau retreated to his own private world, Emerson assumed a
prominent role in public life, making extended overseas lecture tours to
promote the view expressed in his renowned Essays. The two often disagreed on the necessity
of adhering to some public conventions, and the heated tensions between the two
may perhaps be felt in the minimal attention Emerson receives in Walden. Thoreau utterly fails to mention that Emerson
owns the land, despite his tedious detailing of less significant facts, and
when Emerson visits, in the guise of the unnamed “Old Immortal,” Thoreau treats
him rather indifferently.
·
Alex Therien
A laborer in his late
twenties who often works in the vicinity of Thoreau’s abode. Thoreau describes
Therien as “a Canadian, a wood-chopper and post-maker,” asserting that it would
be difficult to find a more simple or natural human being. Although he is not a
reader, Therien is nevertheless conversant and intelligent, and thus he holds
great appeal for Thoreau as a sort of untutored backwoods sage. Thoreau
compares the woodcutter to Walden Pond itself, saying both possess hidden depths.
Read an in-depth analysis of Alex
Therien .
· John Field
A poor Irish-American laborer
who lives with his wife and children on the Baker Farm just outside of Concord.
Thoreau uses Field as an example of an “honest, hard-working, but shiftless
man,” someone who is forced to struggle at a great disadvantage in life because
he lacks unusual natural abilities or social position. The conversation that
Thoreau and Field have when Thoreau runs to the Field home for shelter in a
rainstorm is an uncomfortable reminder that Thoreau’s ideas and convictions may
set him apart from those same poor people that he elsewhere idealizes. Rather
than converse casually with Field, Thoreau gives him a heated lecture on the
merits of cutting down on coffee and meat consumption. Overall, his treatment
of Field seems condescending. His parting regret that Field suffers from an
“inherited” Irish proclivity to laziness casts a strangely ungenerous, even slightly
racist light over all of Thoreau’s ideas.
·
Amos Bronson Alcott
A friend whom Thoreau refers to as “the philosopher.” Alcott was
a noted educator and social reformer, as well as the father of beloved
children’s author Louisa May Alcott. In 1834 he
founded the Temple School in Boston, a noted progressive school that spawned
many imitators. Affiliated with the Transcendentalists, he was known for a set
of aphorisms titled “Orphic Sayings” that appeared in The Dial. Alcott also had a hand in the utopian
communities of Brook Farm and Fruitlands, and went on to become the
superintendent of the Concord public schools.
· William
Ellery Channing
Thoreau’s closest friend, an
amateur poet and an affiliate of the Transcendentalists. Channing was named
after his uncle, a noted Unitarian clergyman. His son, Edward Channing, went on
to become a noted professor of history at Harvard University.
· Henry Clay
A prominent Whig senator from
Kentucky. Clay ran unsuccessfully for president on three occasions. He was a
supporter of internal improvements as a part of his American System, and is
well known as “the Great Compromiser” for his role in the Missouri Compromise
and the Compromise of 1850. Thoreau was a staunch critic of Clay and of the
expansionism that Clay advocated.
· Lidian
Emerson
Emerson’s second wife. Lidian
Emerson was somewhat distressed by her husband’s frequent absences from home.
During her husband’s tours of Europe, Thoreau stayed with her, and the two
developed a close friendship.
· Confucius
A Chinese sage of the sixth century B.C., known
for his sayings and parables collected under the title Analects. His teachings gave rise to a sort of
secular religion known as Confucianism, which served as a model for the Chinese
government in subsequent centuries. Confucius also had a significant effect on
the Transcendentalist movement, and was one of Thoreau’s favorite authors.
· James
Russell Lowell
A Harvard-trained lawyer. Lowell eventually abandoned his first
vocation for a career in letters. His poetic satire The Bigelow Papers was well received, and he went
on to become a professor of modern languages at Harvard and the first editor of
the Atlantic Monthly.
· Mencius
A Chinese sage of the fourth century B.C. and
a disciple of Confucius. Mencius was best known for his anthology of sayings
and stories collected under the title The Book of Mencius, and did much to promote the
reputation of Confucius, although he himself was not widely venerated until
more than a thousand years later. Like his master’s work, Mencius’s combination
of respect for social harmony and the inward reconciliation with the universe
exerted a powerful influence on Thoreau.
· John Thoreau
Elder brother to Henry David
Thoreau. The two brothers oversaw and taught at the Concord Academy, a
progressive independent school, from 1838 to 1841. John Thoreau’s failing
health was a contributing factor in the demise of the school, and he died in
1842 from complications related to lockjaw.
Themes
The Importance of
Self-Reliance
Four years before Thoreau embarked on his Walden project, his
great teacher and role model Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote an enormously
influential essay entitled “Self-Reliance.” It can be seen as a statement of
the philosophical ideals that Thoreau’s experiment is meant to put into
practice. Certainly self-reliance is economic and social in Walden Pond: it is the principle that in
matters of financial and interpersonal relations, independence is more valuable
than neediness. Thus Thoreau dwells on the contentment of his solitude, on his
finding entertainment in the laugh of the loon and the march of the ants rather
than in balls, marketplaces, or salons. He does not disdain human
companionship; in fact he values it highly when it comes on his own terms, as
when his philosopher or poet friends come to call. He simply refuses to need
human society. 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 1845 to 1847 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.
As
Emerson’s essay details, self-reliance can be spiritual as well as economic,
and Thoreau follows Emerson in exploring the higher dimensions of
individualism. 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. Self-reliance thus refers not just to paying one’s own
bills, but also more philosophically to the way the natural world and humankind
rely on the self to exist. 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.
The Value of
Simplicity
Simplicity
is more than a mode of life for Thoreau; it is a philosophical ideal as well.
In his “Economy” chapter, Thoreau asserts that a feeling of dissatisfaction
with one’s possessions can be resolved in two ways: one may acquire more, or
reduce one’s desires. 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. For
Thoreau, anything more than what is useful is not just an extravagance, but a
real impediment and disadvantage. He builds his own shack instead of getting a
bank loan to buy one, and enjoys the leisure time that he can afford by
renouncing larger expenditures. Ironically, he points out, those who pursue
more impressive possessions actually have fewer possessions than he does, since
he owns his house outright, while theirs are technically held by mortgage
companies. He argues that the simplification of one’s lifestyle does not hinder
such pleasures as owning one’s residence, but on the contrary, facilitates
them.
Another irony of Thoreau’s simplification campaign is that his literary style,
while concise, is far from simple. It contains witticisms, double meanings, and
puns that are not at all the kind of New England deadpan literalism that might
pass for literary simplicity. Despite its minimalist message, Walden is an elevated text
that would have been much more accessible to educated city-dwellers than to the
predominantly uneducated country-dwellers.
The Illusion of
Progress
Living
in a culture fascinated by the idea of progress represented by technological,
economic, and territorial advances, Thoreau is stubbornly skeptical of the idea
that any outward improvement of life can bring the inner peace and contentment
he craves. In an era of enormous capitalist expansion, Thoreau is doggedly
anti-consumption, and in a time of pioneer migrations he lauds the pleasures of
staying put. In a century notorious for its smugness toward all that preceded
it, Thoreau points out the stifling conventionality and constraining labor
conditions that made nineteenth-century progress possible.
One
clear illustration of Thoreau’s resistance to progress is his criticism of the
train, which throughout Europe and America was a symbol of the wonders and
advantages of technological progress. Although he enjoys imagining the local
Fitchburg train as a mythical roaring beast in the chapter entitled “Sounds,”
he generally seems peeved by the encroachment of the railway upon the rustic
calm of Walden Pond. Like Tolstoy in Russia, Thoreau in the United States
dissents from his society’s enthusiasm for this innovation in transportation,
seeing it rather as a false idol of social progress. It moves people from one
point to another faster, but Thoreau has little use for travel anyway, asking
the reason for going off “to count the cats in Zanzibar.” It is far better for
him to go vegetate in a little corner of the woods for two years than to
commute from place to place unreflectively.
Symbols
Walden Pond
The
meanings of Walden Pond are various, and by the end of the work this small body
of water comes to symbolize almost everything Thoreau holds dear spiritually,
philosophically, and personally. Certainly it symbolizes the alternative to,
and withdrawal from, social conventions and obligations. But it also symbolizes
the vitality and tranquility of nature. A clue to the symbolic meaning of the
pond lies in two of its aspects that fascinate Thoreau: its depth, rumored to
be infinite, and its pure and reflective quality. Thoreau is so intrigued by
the question of how deep Walden Pond is that he devises a new method of
plumbing depths to measure it himself, finding it no more than a hundred feet
deep. Wondering why people rumor that the pond is bottomless, Thoreau offers a
spiritual explanation: humans need to believe in infinity. He suggests that the
pond is not just a natural phenomenon, but also a metaphor for spiritual
belief. When he later describes the pond reflecting heaven and making the
swimmer’s body pure white, we feel that Thoreau too is turning the water (as in
the Christian sacrament of baptism by holy water) into a symbol of heavenly
purity available to humankind on earth. When Thoreau concludes his chapter on
“The Ponds” with the memorable line, “Talk of heaven! ye disgrace earth,” we
see him unwilling to subordinate earth to heaven. Thoreau finds heaven within
himself, and it is symbolized by the pond, “looking into which the beholder
measures the depth of his own nature.” By the end of the “Ponds” chapter, the water
hardly seems like a physical part of the external landscape at all anymore; it
has become one with the heavenly soul of humankind.
Animals
As Thoreau’s chief companions after he moves to Walden Pond,
animals inevitably symbolize his retreat from human society and closer intimacy
with the natural world. Thoreau devotes much attention in his narrative to the
behavior patterns of woodchucks, partridges, loons, and mice, among others. Yet
his animal writing does not sound like the notes of a naturalist; there is
nothing truly scientific or zoological in Walden, for Thoreau
personalizes nature too much. He does not record animals neutrally, but instead
emphasizes their human characteristics, turning them into short vignettes of
human behavior somewhat in the fashion of Aesop’s fables. For example,
Thoreau’s observation of the partridge and its young walking along his
windowsill elicits a meditation on motherhood and the maternal urge to protect
one’s offspring. Similarly, when Thoreau watches two armies of ants wage war
with all the “ferocity and carnage of a human battle,” Thoreau’s attention is
not that of an entomologist describing their behavior objectively, but rather
that of a philosopher thinking about the universal urge to destroy.
The resemblance between animals and humans also works in the other direction,
as when Thoreau describes the townsmen he sees on a trip to Concord as
resembling prairie dogs. Ironically, the humans Thoreau describes often seem
more “brutish” (like the authorities who imprison him in Concord) than the
actual brutes in the woods do. Furthermore, Thoreau’s intimacy with animals in Walden shows that solitude for
him is not really, and not meant to be, total isolation. His very personal
relationship with animals demonstrates that in his solitary stay at the pond,
he is making more connections, not fewer, with other beings around him.
Ice
Since ice is the only product of Walden Pond that is useful, it
becomes a symbol of the social use and social importance of nature, and of the
exploitation of natural resources. Thoreau’s fascination with the ice industry
is acute. He describes in great detail the Irish icemen who arrive from
Cambridge in the winter of 1846 to cut, block, and
haul away 10,000 tons
of ice for use in city homes and fancy hotels. The ice-cutters are the only
group of people ever said to arrive at Walden Pond en masse, and so they
inevitably represent society in miniature, with all the calculating
exploitations and injustices that Thoreau sees in the world at large.
Consequently, the labor of the icemen on Walden becomes a symbolic microcosm of
the confrontation of society and nature. At first glance it would appear that
society gets the upper hand, as the frozen pond is chopped up, disfigured, and
robbed of ten thousand tons of its contents. But nature triumphs in the end,
since less than twenty-five percent of the ice ever reaches its destination,
the rest melting and evaporating en route—and making its way back to Walden
Pond. With this analysis, Thoreau suggests that humankind’s efforts to exploit
nature are in vain, since nature regenerates itself on a far grander scale than
humans could ever hope to affect, much less threaten. The icemen’s exploitation
of Walden contrasts sharply with Thoreau’s less economic, more poetical use of
it. In describing the rare mystical blue of Walden’s water when frozen, he
makes ice into a lyrical subject rather than a commodity, and makes us reflect
on the question of the value, both market and spiritual, of nature in general.
Motifs
The Seasonal Cycle
The narrative of Walden, which at first seems
haphazard and unplanned, is actually quite consciously put together to mirror
the cycle of the seasons. The compression of Thoreau’s two actual years (1845 to 1847) into
one narrative year shows how relatively unimportant the documentary or logbook
aspect of his writing is. He cares less for the real calendar time taken up by
his project than for the symbolic time he projects onto it. One full year, from
springtime to springtime, echoes the Christian idea of rebirth, moving from one
beginning to a new one. (We can imagine how very different Walden might be if it went
from December to December, for example.) Thus each season inevitably carries
with it not just its usual calendar attributes, but a spiritual resonance as
well. The story begins in the spring of 1845, as
Thoreau begins construction on his cabin. He moves in, fittingly and probably
quite intentionally, on Independence Day, July 4—making
his symbolic declaration of independence from society, and drawing closer to
the true sources of his being. The summer is a time of physical activity, as he
narrates in great detail his various construction projects and domestic
management solutions. He also begins his cultivation of the bean-fields,
following the natural cycle of the seasons like any farmer, but also echoing
the biblical phrase from Ecclesiastes, “a time to reap, a time to sow.” It may
be more than the actual beans he harvests, and his produce may be for the soul
as well as for the marketplace. Winter is a time of reflection and inwardness,
as he mostly communes with himself indoors and has only a few choice visitors.
It is in winter that he undertakes the measuring of the pond, which becomes a
symbol of plumbing his own spiritual depths in solitude. Then in spring come
echoes of Judgment Day, with the crash of melting ice and the trumpeting of the
geese; Thoreau feels all sins forgiven. The cycle of seasons is thus a cycle of
moral and spiritual regeneration made possible by a communion with nature and
with oneself.
Poetry
The moral directness and hardheaded practical bookkeeping
matters with which Thoreau inaugurates Walden do not prepare us for
the lyrical outbursts that occur quite frequently and regularly in the work.
Factual and detail-minded, Thoreau is capable of some extraordinary imaginary
visions, which he intersperses within economic matters in a highly unexpected
way. In his chapter “The Bean-Field,” for example, Thoreau tells us that he
spent fifty-four cents on a hoe, and then soon after quotes a verse about wings
spreading and closing in preparation for flight. The down-to-earth hoe and the
winged flight of fancy are closely juxtaposed in a way typical of the whole
work.
Occasionally the lyricism is a quotation of other people’s
poems, as when Thoreau quotes a Homeric epic in introducing the noble figure of
Alex Therien. At other times, as in the beautiful “Ponds” chapter, Thoreau
allows his prose to become lyrical, as when he describes the mystical blue ice
of Walden Pond. The intermittent lyricism of Walden is more than just a
pleasant decorative addition or stylistic curiosity. It delivers the powerful
philosophical message that there is higher meaning and transcendent value in
even the most humble stay in a simple hut by a pond. Hoeing beans, which some
might consider the antithesis of poetry, is actually a deeply lyrical and
meaningful experience when seen in the right way.
Imaginary People
Thoreau mentions several actual people in Walden, but curiously, he also
devotes considerable attention to describing nonexistent or imaginary people.
At the beginning of the chapter “Former Inhabitants,” Thoreau frankly
acknowledges that in his winter isolation he was forced to invent imaginary
company for himself. This conjuring is the work of his imagination, but it is
also historically accurate, since the people he conjures are based on memories
of old-timers who remember earlier neighbors now long gone. Thoreau’s imaginary
companions are thus somewhere between fact and fiction, reality and fantasy.
When Thoreau describes these former inhabitants in vivid detail, we can easily
forget that they are now dead: they seem too real.
Thoreau also manages to make actual people seem imaginary.
He never uses proper names when referring to friends and associates in Walden, rendering them
mythical. After Thoreau describes Alex Therien as a Homeric hero, we cannot
help seeing him in a somewhat poetic and unreal way, despite all the realism of
Thoreau’s introduction. He doesn’t name even his great spiritual teacher,
Emerson, but obliquely calls him the “Old Immortal.” The culmination of this
continual transformation of people into myths or ideas is Thoreau’s expectation
of “the Visitor who never comes,” which he borrows from the Vedas, a Hindu
sacred text. This remark lets us see how spiritual all of Thoreau’s imaginary
people are. The real person, for him, is not the villager with a name, but
rather the transcendent soul behind that external social persona.
