Walden opens with
a simple announcement that Thoreau spent two years in Walden Pond,
near Concord, Massachusetts, living a simple life supported by no
one. He says that he now resides among the civilized again; the
episode was clearly both experimental and temporary. The first chapter,
“Economy,” is a manifesto of social thought and meditations on domestic
management, and in it Thoreau sketches out his ideals as he describes
his pond project. He devotes attention to the skepticism and wonderment
with which townspeople had greeted news of his project, and he defends
himself from their views that society is the only place to live.
He recounts the circumstances of his move to Walden Pond, along
with a detailed account of the steps he took to construct his rustic
habitation and the methods by which he supported himself in the
course of his wilderness experiment. It is a chapter full of facts, figures,
and practical advice, but also offers big ideas about the claims
of individualism versus social existence, all interspersed with evidence
of scholarship and a propensity for humor.
Thoreau tells us that he completed his cabin in the spring
of 1845 and moved in on July 4 of
that year. Most of the materials and tools he used to build his
home he borrowed or scrounged from previous sites. The land he squats
on belongs to his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson; he details a cost-analysis
of the entire construction project. In order to make a little money,
Thoreau cultivates a modest bean-field, a job that tends to occupy
his mornings. He reserves his afternoons and evenings for contemplation,
reading, and walking about the countryside. Endorsing the values
of austerity, simplicity, and solitude, Thoreau consistently emphasizes
the minimalism of his lifestyle and the contentment to be derived
from it. He repeatedly contrasts his own freedom with the imprisonment
of others who devote their lives to material prosperity.
Despite his isolation, Thoreau feels the presence of
society surrounding him. The Fitchburg Railroad rushes past Walden
Pond, interrupting his reveries and forcing him to contemplate the
power of technology. Thoreau also finds occasion to converse with
a wide range of other people, such as the occasional peasant farmer,
railroad worker, or the odd visitor to Walden. He describes in some detail
his association with a Canadian-born woodcutter, Alex Therien, who
is grand and sincere in his character, though modest in intellectual
attainments. Thoreau makes frequent trips into Concord to seek the
society of his longtime friends and to conduct what scattered business
the season demands. On one such trip, Thoreau spends a night in
jail for refusing to pay a poll tax because, he says, the government
supports slavery. Released the next day, Thoreau returns to Walden.
Thoreau devotes great attention to nature, the passing
of the seasons, and the creatures with which he shares the woods.
He recounts the habits of a panoply of animals, from woodchucks
to partridges. Some he endows with a larger meaning, often spiritual
or psychological. The hooting loon that plays hide and seek with
Thoreau, for instance, becomes a symbol of the playfulness of nature
and its divine laughter at human endeavors. Another example of animal symbolism
is the full-fledged ant war that Thoreau stumbles upon, prompting
him to meditate on human warfare. Thoreau’s interest in animals
is not exactly like the naturalist’s or zoologist’s. He does not observe
and describe them neutrally and scientifically, but gives them a
moral and philosophical significance, as if each has a distinctive
lesson to teach him.
As autumn turns to winter, Thoreau begins preparations
for the arrival of the cold. He listens to the squirrel, the rabbit,
and the fox as they scuttle about gathering food. He watches the
migrating birds, and welcomes the pests that infest his cabin as
they escape the coming frosts. He prepares his walls with plaster
to shut out the wind. By day he makes a study of the snow and ice,
giving special attention to the mystic blue ice of Walden Pond,
and by night he sits and listens to the wind as it whips and whistles
outside his door. Thoreau occasionally sees ice-fishermen come to
cut out huge blocks that are shipped off to cities, and contemplates
how most of the ice will melt and flow back to Walden Pond. Occasionally
Thoreau receives a visit from a friend like William Ellery Channing
or Amos Bronson Alcott, but for the most part he is alone. In one
chapter, he conjures up visions of earlier residents of Walden Pond
long dead and largely forgotten, including poor tradesmen and former slaves.
Thoreau prefers to see himself in their company, rather than amid
the cultivated and wealthy classes.
As he becomes acquainted with Walden Pond and neighboring ponds,
Thoreau wants to map their layout and measure their depths. Thoreau
finds that Walden Pond is no more than a hundred feet deep, thereby
refuting common folk wisdom that it is bottomless. He meditates
on the pond as a symbol of infinity that people need in their lives.
Eventually winter gives way to spring, and with a huge crash and
roar the ice of Walden Pond begins to melt and hit the shore. In
lyric imagery echoing the onset of Judgment Day, Thoreau describes
the coming of spring as a vast transformation of the face of the
world, a time when all sins are forgiven.
Thoreau announces that his project at the pond is over,
and that he returned to civilized life on September 6, 1847.
The revitalization of the landscape suggests the restoration of
the full powers of the human soul, and Thoreau’s narrative observations
give way, in the last chapter of Walden, to a more
direct sermonizing about the untapped potential within humanity.
In visionary language, Thoreau exhorts us to “meet” our lives and
live fully.
