In Henry David Thoreau’s infamous novel “Walden”, we are shown endless
paradoxes that stem from the author’s deep and insightful views into
nature’s universal connections with the human race. Thoreau makes himself a
quest of finding the meaning to our existence by investigating nature from
different perspectives that our preoccupied society constantly overlooks. Two of
these perspectives are of viewing nature from a mountaintop or panoramic view
and the other being from our own earthly foundations. “At other times watching
from an observatory of some cliff or tree, to telegraph any new arrival; or
waiting at evening on the hill-tops for the sky to fall, that I might catch
something, though never caught much, and that, mannawise, would dissolve again
in the sun” (Thoreau 336). In this passage, Thoreau tells us that he is
searching for something but he is not sure of what it is exactly. He states that
he has taken refuge plenty of times at sites that are at high altitudes to try
to see more clearly so that the answers of life can become more apparent. He
says he waits for the sky to fall, which of course it can’t, but this tells me
that he is looking for the unexpected or what hasn’t been seen yet. The word
“mannawise” is a Thoreau “original” word. I know, by my own knowledge,
that “manna” is another word or prefix for “earth”, so when he says that
the “mannawise, would dissolve again in the sun”, I believe he is saying
that his search has hit another rut without answers and so the sun sets and so
does the earth’s responses of wisdom. “Let us settle ourselves, and work and
wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and
tradition, and delusion, and appearance, that alluvion which covers the globe,
through Paris and London, through New York and Boston and Concord, through
church and state, through poetry and philosophy and religion, till we come to a
hard bottom and rocks in place, which we can call reality, and say, This is, and
no mistake; and then begin…” (Thoreau 400). This is one of Thoreau’s
strongest statements using the perspective of burrowing down to our own roots to
find the buried treasures of life. He tells us to forget everything we have
learned and start all over with a fresh and clean state of mind. Once we do this
we can experience true “reality” and not what society has handed us to
believe in. To work our way down through all we have been taught by man and to
find the real answers in ourselves and nature and if we do this, only then shall
we live and be. “To my imagination it retained throughout the day more or less
of this auroral character, reminding me of a certain house on a mountain which I
had visited the year before. This was an airy and unplastered cabin, fit to
entertain a travelling god, and where a goddess might trail her garments. The
winds which passed over my dwelling were such as sweep over the ridges of
mountains, bearing the broken strains, or celestial parts only, of terrestrial
music” “Olympus is but the outside of the earth every where” (Thoreau 390)
In this passage, Thoreau gives us another panoramic view of being on a
mountaintop where a house is, with a sight so beautiful and magical, that its
only comparison would be of Olympus, home of the Greek gods. He gives us a past
description of what he remembers about a rundown cabin and even though it was a
decaying site, its towering position made it god worthy. Thoreau starts by
stating that his present house looked like an “auroral character”, setting
an analogy of the sun shining all around his residence reminding him of the
“Olympus” site. This godlike place on the mountain has nature’s own music
playing by the ways of the wind passing through the holes and hollows of
earth’s landscapes. He uses the metaphor of Greek Mythology to give us a
grandeur view of the earth so that we may see clearly and truly to find our real
selves and world. “Though the view from my door was still more contracted, I
did not feel crowded or confined in the least. There was pasture enough for my
imagination” (Thoreau 392). This is another statement which Thoreau uses the
perspective of the ground and foundation to explain his point of view. I have
this mental picture of Thoreau sitting in his doorway of the small cabin facing
Walden Pond, making his fascinating inquiries and writing steadily as they come
to him. This cabin was supposedly small by the measurements Thoreau gives
earlier on, and so someone, like me, might take it that such a confined space
may take away from the imagination rather than ignite it. But as Thoreau points
out, sitting in his doorway, staring out at all of the inhabitants and land,
that he has no feelings of imaginative solitude since there was enough pasture
(land) “for my imagination”. This is a very important point even though it
only consists of one short sentence. Thoreau is reminding us that our
imagination lies within us and that no matter what circumstances we are in, it
is there and always accessible. So does this mean that our imagination is the
lost treasure? “I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to
live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to
cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to
its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and
genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were
sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in
my next excursion” (Thoreau 394-5). This is one of the most famous passages
from Walden. These lines have been read by millions of people since they were
published and have shaped many lives into personal happiness. This is another
“burrowing” perspective but this time the burrowing is done inside of our
own lives with the imagery of using our own bodies. Thoreau gives us his thesis
statement of why he moved to Walden and what he hoped to find. “Cutting” our
images and lives down to the core, reaching the depths of one’s soul, starting
over again with just the essentials of the mind is how he will find this lost
treasure that so many of us have lost. These passages remind me of a warrior’s
speech before going to battle (like a Spartan!) in the epic tales, or like the
quests for the Holy Grail, stating that if he does not find the meaning of life
so obviously then he will continue his search relentlessly making this his human
goal. In my opinion, this man really lived with wonderful awareness, taking
every hour of being as a gift and savoring everything that life, not society,
had to offer. Thoreau saw with transparent eyes into the lowest depths of world
and then up to the highest zeniths of creation to find what most people never
will.
Bibliography
Thoreau, H.D. A Week On The Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Walden, The Maine
Woods, Cape Cod. Lib. Of America. New York, 1985.