WaldenClose Reading Guide

Walden: Economy

Let’s look at a definition of “economy.” In your groups, talk about how many of these uses seem to be reflected in this chapter. Try to identify a passage illustrating each.

What does Thoreau say about his goals in writing Walden? (Let’s begin with the first few pages)

Page 3 – what is Thoreau saying about slavery? What do you feel he means by “quiet desperation”? How about “…alert and healthy natures remember

that the sun rose clear”?

Walden: Economy

What does Thoreau say about viewing the world through the perspectives of the past? (4-5, to end of section) How might we compare these passages to the Tao Te Ching? (Or any of the works we’ve read?)

Economy: The Bare Necessities

What does Thoreau describe as the necessities we need to sustain life? How does he feel about anything above and beyond these?

What does he mean by the last paragraph on page 7?

Economy: Trading With the Celestial Empire

Starting on page 8, Thoreau lays out his “business” for us.

What is Thoreau’s “business” – and why is Walden Pond “a good place for business” (10)?

Hound, Bay-horse, Turtledove

“and their hound & horse may perhaps be the symbols of some of them. But also I have lost, or am in danger of losing, a far finer & more ethereal treasure which commonly no loss of which they are conscious will symbolize —this I answer hastily & with some hesitation, according as I now understand my own words” (Correspondence, 478).

Hodder, Professor Alan D. (2001-10-11). Thoreau's Ecstatic Witness

Back to the Bare Necessities

Clothing (11-13)Shelter (13-20)Building your own (23-24)Frank Lloyd Wrighting it (24-25)

Book-larning and Newfangled Do-dads

Pages 25-27 Thoreau goes on a little rant about education

What would our Taoist sage think of this passage?

What is the true cost of “improvements” like the railroad? What does Thoreau mean when he says “the swiftest traveller is he that goes afoot”?

And Necessities Again

Mull: what were the signs of a great civilization in ancient times? What was the great development that made those civilizations possible?

Guess what Thoreau thinks about them: 28-30.

Wrapping up his Economy: what it all means (36).

Church of Thoreauveans (37)?

Uncharitable on Charity

After a long criticism of philanthropy, Thoreau sums up “Economy” for self-reform (42).

Where He Lived, and What He Lived For

“Where I sat, there I might live, and the landscape radiated from me accordingly.” Compare this to “Anecdote of the Jar” by Wallace Stevens.

“I have frequently seen a poet withdraw, having enjoyed the most valuable part of a farm, while the crusty farmer supposed that he had got a few wild apples only. Why, the owner does not know it for many years when a poet has put his farm in rhyme, the most admirable kind of invisible fence, has fairly impounded it, milked it, skimmed it, and got all the cream, and left the farmer only the skimmed milk” (43).

House Hunting

I think I shall not buy greedily, but go round and round it as long as I live, and be buried in it first, that it may please me the more at last.Thoreau, Henry David (44).

Compare these passages on property to Thoreau’s description of the pond on the following pages.

Where He Lived

Both place and time were changed, and I dwelt nearer to those parts of the universe and to those eras in history which had most attracted me. Where I lived was as far off as many a region viewed nightly by astronomers. We are wont to imagine rare and delectable places in some remote and more celestial corner of the system, behind the constellation of Cassiopeia’s Chair, far from noise and disturbance. I discovered that my house actually had its site in such a withdrawn, but forever new and unprofaned, part of the universe (46).

Waking Up

Let’s look at Thoreau’s reflection on the dawn on page 46.

RitualWhy all the allusions? It matters not what the clocks say or the

attitudes and labors of men. Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me. (47).

What He Lived For

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived (48).

Reflect on this paragraph. What is he saying? How does it echo what we’ve seen already – especially in the Bhagavad Gita?

Shams. Wow.

Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous (50).

Again, take a few minutes to read through this paragraph. Reflect in your journal. What is he saying? What do we see her we’ve seen in other works of mysticism?

The Stream of Time

Finally, read and reflect on the final paragraph. What does it mean to you? Why is Thoreau’s “head” an organ for “burrowing”?

“All by myself…just wanna be….”

Look at these passages: “they plainly fished much more in the Walden Pond of

their own natures, and baited their hooks with darkness” (69).

“Yet I experienced sometimes that the most sweet and tender, the most innocent and encouraging society may be found in any natural object, even for the poor misanthrope and most melancholy man “(70).

“This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space” ( 71).

Presence

In the midst of a gentle rain while these thoughts prevailed, I was suddenly sensible of such sweet and beneficent society in Nature, in the very pattering of the drops, and in every sound and sight around my house, an infinite and unaccountable friendliness all at once like an atmosphere sustaining me, as made the fancied advantages of human neighborhood insignificant, and I have never thought of them since. Every little pine needle expanded and swelled with sympathy and befriended me. I was so distinctly made aware of the presence of something kindred to me, even in scenes which we are accustomed to call wild and dreary, and also that the nearest of blood to me and humanest was not a person nor a villager, that I thought no place could ever be strange to me again” ( 70).

Awakening

Again, take a minute to review the section beginning with “Any prospect of awakening” on page 71 and ending with “This doubleness may easily make us poor neighbors and friends sometimes” (72).

The quotations are all from Confucius. In your journal: reflect on what Thoreau

seems to e saying here.

Alone vs. Lonely

Let’s look carefully at the last few pages of “Solitude”, starting with the bottom of page 72.

Is Thoreau lonely? Why not?Who are the two visitors he describes in those

closing paragraphs?

Higher Laws

What two natures does Thoreau see in human nature?

What does he say about hunting? How does it reflect the evolution of the individual soul?

What kind of lifestyle does Thoreau aspire to? Why?

A Life of Purity

A life lived according to higher principles – 116.

What is the purpose of living a “pure” life? (117-119)

What does that last paragraph mean? How does it echo the other works we’ve read?

Spring

Our village life would stagnate if it were not for the unexplored forests and meadows which surround it. We need the tonic of wildness….

Conclusion

Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.What are Thoreau’s main premises as outlined in his conclusion?