Henry David Thoreau Essay, Research Paper
Henry David Thoreau was a man who expressed his beliefs of society, government, and
mankind while living under his own self-criticism. Thoreau believed he had many
weaknesses which made him a failure. This strong disapproval of himself contrasted with
his powerful words and strong actions. These contradictions led to some of Thoreau’s
greatest pieces of literature.
Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts on July 12, 1817, in his
grandmother’s house. Thoreau believed that Concord was, “the most estimable place in all
the world, and in the very nick of time, too” (Harding 4). Though Thoreau was born in
“the era of good feeling,” his family experienced many misfortunes, politically, physically,
and financially (4). Thoreau’s father, John, was a small, quiet, man who got along with
Henry on the surface, but it seems that the two never quite understood each other’s
desires. He had weakening health and this caused the family’s financial strain (11). As for
John and Henry’s relationship, Harding says, “Their relationship was one based more on
toleration than on enthusiasm” (9). Cynthia Thoreau, Henry’s mother, was more of an
outspoken dynamic person. Though the family was poor, she was known to always have
enough for her children and her neighbors as well. It is apparent that both parents passed
on their love of nature to their children (9,10).
After Henry’s birth, John was forced to sign over the family home in Boston. The family
was forced to move as they would many more times to come. On October 12, 1817,
Henry was christened after his uncle David Thoreau, who had recently died (11). At the
age of five Henry started school. This was the age that he went to visit his grandmother
for first time and had his first visit to Walden Pond. Thoreau remembers, “…one of the
most ancient scenes stamped on the tablets of my memory…. That sweet solitude my spirit
seemed so early to require at once gave the preference to this recess among the pines,
where almost sunshine and shadow were the only inhabitants that varied the scene, over
the tumultuous and varied city, as if it had found its proper nursery” (13-14). It is apparent
that Thoreau associates Walden Pond with his happiest memories.
Thoreau was a deeply religious man, but disliked church. He was very serious as a child
and loved his solitude (Schneider 4). Thoreau says he was truly happiest when he could be
by himself (25). In 1828, Thoreau and his older brother John, to whom he was closest,
went to Concord Academy. Henry was the smarter of the two and in 1833, was sent to
Harvard University, where he did very well. It was there that Thoreau was first exposed to
writing publicly when the Editor of the Dial, which is a periodical for a transcendentalist
group, gave him a job. In 1837, Thoreau graduated form Harvard and this is where he first
heard Ralph Waldo Emerson speak. It was at this time that he began writing his journal.
He started teaching in Concord’s Center School for a brief period of two weeks. Thoreau
was told to enforce corporate punishment in the classroom and he resigned. He ended up
working in his father’s pencil factory where he improved American pencils. He did this by
improving the method of mixing graphite which he discovered by researching the
European methods of making pencils. This made his father’s company the leader in the
American market. It was also at this time in his life that David Henry had his name
changed to Henry David. In time, Thoreau became good friends with R.W. Emerson and
Emerson took on the role of Thoreau’s mentor. Thoreau found support in Emerson’s
individualism and philosophies. Both men took a transcendental view of the world. In
1839, Thoreau and his brother John reopened the Concord Academy. They then took a
boating trip on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers to Hooksett, New Hampshire, and to
Mount Washington. In 1840, Thoreau published his first piece of poetry in the Dial. Only
a few of his pieces from these publications are remembered, such as, “Sic Vita,” “Smoke,”
“Inspiration,” and “Bluebirds.” His love of nature was expressed in his essays such as,
“The Natural History of Massachusetts,” and “A Winter Walk.” While this was a positive
time in Thoreau’s life the next year held some hardships. The school shut down due to his
brother’s illness, and Thoreau moved in with William Emerson as his handy-man in order
to make money. He still continued to publish his poetry and essays in the Dial. The two
transcendental friends, R. W. Emerson and Thoreau began to differ in their philosophies.
Thoreau was becoming a strong believer that the material world existed where Emerson
believed more in the existence of the human soul (Schneider 4,6-8).
Thoreau is known to have fallen in love with Ellen Sewall, who was also the interest of his
brother, John. However, she turned them both down in marriage. It is believed that Henry
never had another love interest. Horace Hosmer says, “he did not have the ‘love -idea’ in
him: i.e. he did not appear to feel the sex-attraction” (9). He is portrayed as a gay man and
some of his works are contained in gay books. Walter Harding says, “there is evidence of
a strong homoerotic element in Thoreau’s personality-although I should add that to the
best of my knowledge no factual evidence of homosexuality on Thoreaus’s part has been
uncovered” (9). There is no proof that Thoreau was a homosexual, but it would make
sense to realize his disinterest in sex was due to his search of moral purity. Thoreau was a
man who found no love in society, therefore he turned to nature (9).
In 1842, John Thoreau died of lockjaw. This severe stress caused Henry to suffer from
psychosomatic symptoms of tetanus. Soon after John’s death, William Emerson’s son,
Waldo, died. The tragic stress of these two incidents in such a short matter of time was a
very rough period for Thoreau. In 1844, Thoreau worked in his father’s pencil factory
again. During this time his love for nature grew and continued to remind him of his
brother. In 1845, Thoreau moved to Walden Pond and built a one room cabin. It was here
where he began his work on the first of his two published works of literature, A Week on
the Concord and Merrimack River. It was in 1846, when Thoreau spent the night in jail
for refusing to pay a poll tax in order to protest the governments participationin the
Mexican War and their allowance of slavery. As Schneider says, “…he spent his famous
night in jail…” (14). He believed he was making an incredible statement that would set a
model for the rest of society. Unfortunately, his action had little effect on the people,
which led to his essay “Civil Disobedience” (14). In this essay, Thoreau explains how he
could not call a government his own that allowed slavery. He first delivered this essay as a
speech called, “The Rights and Duties of the Individual in Relation to Government”
(Meltzer 44). It did not become known as “Civil Disobedience” until after Thoreau’s
death. His powerful and persuasive words in this speech deal with moral issues and their
conflict with the law (44). Also at this time, Thoreau took his first trip to the Maine
Woods where he climbed the Mount Ktahdin (sic). He gained much from of his time spent
at Walden Pond and got much accomplished. He completed the rough draft of his second
and best known piece of work, Walden (Schneider 14). Harding tells us Thoreau lived at
Walden two years, two days, and two months out of his forty-four years of life (Hicks 47).
He felt that this was time well spent and a beneficial aspect to his life, almost like a life
completed to his overall life. Thoreau left Walden Pond to return to town and work on
writing and lecturing. He stayed with the Emerson’s for a time and than his parents. The
year 1849 saw the publication of A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers and the
lecture “Civil Disobedience.” Unfortunately, A Week was not a huge hit and this only
depressed Thoreau. In 1854, Walden was published by Ticknor and Fields and sold very
well. Over the next few years Thoreau took many trips to Cape Cod, New England, New
Jersey, and the Maine Woods. He met many new interesting people such as John Brown
and Walt Whitman. In 1859, Thoreau’s father died and he inherited the pencil factory. At
this time, he was giving lectures and writing essays. In 1860, Thoreau’s final illness began
to fall. He still wanted to work. He continued to write poems such as “Wild Apples” and
“Autumnal Tints” which consisted of his transcendental views which remained constant
throughout his career as an artist. In 1860, Thoreau contracted bronchitis and went to
Minnesota to find a drier climate, however, he returned home when the change did not
seem to help. On May 6, 1862, Thoreau died in Concord (Schneider 9,11-14,16,19,21).
Thoreau spent his life trying to understand the illusions of the material world and see past
them and understand truth. His life is a contrast between two extremes, pure
transcendentalism and surface ideals. It is said that only in Walden did he express a
balance between the real world and his art (23).
Thoreau was an incredible American author. According to his journal, he thought of
himself as a poet, though Stern tells us his prose was much better than his verse. Thoreau
had the ability to read people for who they really were. He had high expectations of people
and could barely meet these expectations himself. His life was full of searching for truth,
beauty, and honest understanding for a better life for mankind (Stern 15). This searching
was due to his doubt and unanswered questions. Many thought Thoreau was stuck up, but
he was simply self-critical. As Thoreau says, “I never dreamed of any enormity greater
than I have committed. I never knew and never shall know, a worse man than myself”
(16). In this quote from Walden, we see his utter disgust with himself. Much of Thoreau’s
disappointment in himself stemmed from his high expectations of society and other people.
These let-downs not only made him disgusted with society and the world, but also himself
because he could not change it (16).
Due to Thoreau’s low self-opinion he had broad mood swings. Excerpts from his journal
show this broad contrast clearly. January 6, 1857; IX, 206, “The storms are happy,
Concord is happy, and I am happy too,” This shows some acceptance of himself when it
came to his intelligence and talent, but his unsettled opinion and unattainable standards can
be seen in his writing from the very next day, “In the street and in society I am almost
invariably cheap and dissipated, my life is unspeakably mean” (25). Thoreau, like any
artist, would torture himself through extensive internal trials. These extremes of both his
conscious and unconscious mind make up Walden (25).
Walden is a great classic of American literature and one of two of Thoreau’s published
pieces of literature. The other one is A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. Both
of these classics stress the author’s love of nature and found their beginnings at Walden
Pond. Thoreau has other books that are collection of essays, lectures, various excursions,
and Reform Papers (Johnson 3).
A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers is written about the boat trip Thoreau and
his brother took on the rivers Concord and Merrimack. Thoreau began writing this after
his brothers death. Emerson is also considered one of his inspirations for writing this book.
He included much of his travel knowledge, and things he read at Harvard such as pastoral
prayers. His journey on the river taken with his brother is quoted in one essay, “…he thus
depicted the journey as a withdrawal from the village to an unspoiled poetic world where
he and his brother achieve a closer communion with nature” (Johnson 3). His two earlier
excursions were, “A Walk to Wachusett” and “A Winter Walk” which were published in
the Dial. In these writings, Thoreau used this trip as a spiritual quest for spirituality and
imagination. His use of nature symbols such as mountains and rivers became predominant
central feature in A Week. When he began using his recollective memories to write the
book he used many entries from his journal. He also used other inspirations such as a
walking tour he took in southern New England in 1848. It was there he dealt with the
issue of the growth of the Merrimack River since 1839. According to Johnson, “By the
time it was published in 1849, A Week was thus composed of a carefully orchestrated
series of excursions through New England, at once a pastoral realm, a primitive
wilderness, and a bustling industrial region” (4).
Henry and John left Concord on Saturday, August 31, 1839 on the Musketaquid, a boat
they built and gave the Indian name of the Concord River. Thoreau includes things such as
what the nights were like at their campsites, and their extensive progress up the
Merrimack River. Their river journey ended on Wednesday night where they then walked
ten miles back to Concord. He mentions the tourist attractions they saw such as the basin
and flume at Lincoln, Franconia Notch, and the old man of the mountains they saw from
Echo Lake. He did not necessarily describe these things in great detail, but we can still see
the personal feeling in it (5-6). Due to Thoreau’s complex and back and forth personality,
in time, he viewed his trip as a trip of the mind, spirit, and body. We get this from his
journal entries. In them he describes a withdrawal to a timeless world, but does not
overlook things and people that were along the Concord and Merrimack. He wanted to
show nature and man as one (9-10).
A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers is one of his most transcendental pieces of
literature. Walter Harding summarizes: “[Recent critics] see the book as ‘a search for the
sacred’ or ‘an exposition of the transcendental experience’ or ‘a defense of the American
Indian’ or ‘a paean to the Greek gods.’” (Schneider 28). The point he is trying to make is
that critics can not agree on Thoreau’s attempts at unity in this book. It is agreed that the
most obvious structural device he uses is that of a circular journey, such as a surface fact
that the brothers’ journey began and ended in Concord. Thoreau himself says, “we were
rowing homeward to find some autumnal work to do, and help the revolution of the
seasons” (29). Along the trip, Thoreau portrays the sights he sees and refers to works of
visual art. We see specific images such as the landscape, the setting, and a man and his
dog (Schneider 30). We see the personal imagery and sense a feeling of realness through
the incredible use of vocabulary and description. His words are like those of an artist
describing a painting.
Another aspect of Thoreau’s transcendentalism is his abrupt shifts from the past to the
present. He is trying to break down the distinctions between the two. Images of the
morning, day, and evening are used to portray the continuity and unity of the past, present,
and the future. Thoreau talks about the founding of the town of Billerica, and then jumps
into long essays on myths, fables, and legends as well. Sometimes he will use “I” and other
times “we” (31). This is all part of the transcendental experience.
Thoreau’s overall themes of life are predominant in A Week. His continuous struggle with
surviving in the world without selling out like the majority of society is his most clearly
seen theme. We also see Thoreau as he tries to deal with his questions and struggles. By
use of his transcendentalism, Thoreau implies that the material world is not true, it is not
“real” or “substantial” (34). He finds much disappointment in the people of society which
is reflected in his own self opinion. Thoreau had expectations of finding spiritual truth in
nature, not through it. He believed it was a symbol and that we should be able to see God
(36). These contrasting ideas show us Thoreau’s means of sorting out his confusion and
reasoning his self explanations. A Week consists of ideas on how to live a successful and
full transcendental life by making use of “successive day journeys” toward “eternal day.”
Thoreau saw two paths that he approved of, that of the “hero” and that of the “poet.”
Schneider tells us, “his goal was to combine the two on the transcendental assumption that
the greatest life is the greatest poetry, and vice versa” (37). Thoreau used the ideas that as