Walden Review
What does a book expert think: Get a comprehensive overview of the reception and review of Walden.
Article written by Victor Onuorah
Degree in Journalism from University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
Thoreau’s main motive for writing ‘Walden’ was for it to serve as a form of lecture informing his Concord locals about his two-year experiences in Walden Pond – a place where he embarked on a personal mission to attain selfhood and complete freedom from society and its shackling construct.
Key Facts about Walden
- Book Title: ‘Walden’
- Author: Henry David Thoreau
- Publisher: Ticknor and Fields: Boston
- Publishing Date: August 1854.
- Literary Era: Transcendentalist era
- Literary Genre: Memoir, nonfiction.
- Pagination: 172 pages
- Climax: Thoreau describes how he embraces snowy days with joy and contentment.
- Setting: Walden Pond, Concord, Massachusetts.
Henry David Thoreau and Walden
Henry David Thoreau is a man remembered for his contradictory beliefs and ideas. And being a social thinker and philosopher, he constantly had questions about society and the norms by which people tended to live by. Thoreau confronted several social constructs and searched for the most appropriate ways the individual can live a happier, more fulfilling life – even without great means.
His ideas in ‘Walden’ – which by far is his best legacy – were started in the first place as a personal experimental project as he sought to fix the popular and so-called conventional ways that society forced people to live by. For this cause, Thoreau abandoned his friends and family – along with everything he ever owned acquired in society to survive on humble and honest means.
Thoreau’s adventure led him to the conclusion that to survive, be happy, and content didn’t require too many properties or amassed wealth, riches, or celebrity connections, but that it depended on one’s ability to harness and tap into their natural intuitions, morality, and honest spirituality.
Books Related to Walden
Henry David Thoreau is a master of socially contradictory opinions, especially in favor of the individual’s pursuit of selfhood and independence. Several of Thoreau’s works showed this, and it’s particularly seen expressed very passionately in his best book, ‘Walden.’
Thoreau’s essays were some of the major works on which Ralph Waldo Emerson’s transcendentalism school of thought was hinged, and this is because, like his friend Waldo Emerson, Thoreau lectured mostly about individualism, selfhood, and self-consciousness.
Many great books probe society’s excesses, thus following in the brave footpaths of ‘Walden,’ and some of them might include other works he completed, such as ‘Civil Disobedience.’ Thoreau’s mentor and friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson, also has several similar publications, including ‘Nature’ and ‘Self-Reliance.’
The Lasting Impact of Walden
During his time, Thoreau’s ‘Walden’ is one of the few memoirs whose ideas and propositions had the most social impact, and this is because, unlike other works which were pro-society and pro-government, Thoreau’s work proved quite the opposite as it attacked the established norms and questions the rationality behind society people’s survival mentality.
For example, as per living, Thoreau believed – and through his book ‘Walden’ proved – that it was completely pointless when people did everything possible, including crossing the line to make and amass wealth and properties, because in the end, what the individual only needed to have a happy life was a small fraction of such abundance.
Thoreau, through ‘Walden,’ showed that it was possible to survive without the overly and unnecessary pressures on the goals and aspirations of the average society person. The author proved this by embarking on a two-year hiatus from his normal life – venturing into the wilderness to live as a hermit, only feeding and taking care of his needs by doing honest and simple works for a living.
The impact of ‘Walden’ was immediately felt by the people during the time it was written and still does to this day. The original work comes in eighteen essay releases – with all being equally as contradictory as possible in terms of ideas carried. ‘Walden’ is one book that forces the reader into rationalization so that they question the validity of everything and make decisions through intuition and morality.
Walden Themes and Analysis
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About Victor Onuorah
Degree in Journalism from University of Nigeria, Nsukka.