This guide was made possible by a grant from The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
Guide written by Richard J. Schneider, Wartburg College.
Henry David Thoreau's Walden
is one of those rare books that
yields new insights no matter how many times one reads it. A book
remarkably rich in ideas and images, it can be approached through
a wide variety of reading strategies. Bill McKibben, in his introduction
and annotations to this edition of Walden,
attempts to guide
the reader to a coherent view of the book as a "practical environmentalist's
volume," a book that can help the reader to cope with real problems
of life as we enter the twenty-first century.
This teacher's guide attempts to extend McKibben's approach to Walden
into specific activities and questions that will help
students to grasp the practical implications of Thoreau's ideas.
Before Reading Walden
In preparing students to read Walden the teacher will want
to give them some basic historical and biographical background about
Here are a few of the essential facts.
back to contents
Henry David Thoreau (born 1817, died 1862) lived during
a time in America's history when business and technology were beginning
to dominate American lif e. Thoreau lived nearly all his life in
Concord, Massachusetts, a small town about twenty miles west
of Boston which showed this shift from an agrarian to an industrial
America in ways that made him worry.
Technology in the form of the Fi tchburg railroad, which
reached Concord in 1844, was already turning Concord into a suburb
of Boston. The railroad chugged past then, as it does today, only
a few feet from the shores of Walden Pond. The railroad meant
that Concord merchants could extend their buying and selling more
easily beyond the bounds of the town and that farmers could shift
from growing subsistence crops to growing cash crops to be sold
to distant markets. It also meant that farmers could make extra
money by selling off the ir woodlots for firewood to keep Bostonians
warm, an enterprise in which Thoreau assisted them through his abilities
Thoreau's family participated in the "quiet desperation"
of commerce and industry through the pencil factory owned and managed
by his father. Thoreau family pencils, produced behind the family
house on Main Street, were general ly recognized as America's best
pencils, largely because of Henry's research into German pencil-making
Thoreau understood early in America's history how dependent industrialization was on the exploitation of cheap labor.
This exploitation was most obvious in the use of slavery
to pick cotton in the South. Thoreau had some experience with runaway
slaves, because the Thoreau family house was sometimes used by the "underground railroad" to hide slaves; Thoreau himself put at least
one slave on the train to freedom in Canada. He also witnessed and
read about the exploitation of Irish and Chinese laborers to build
the railroads. He himself experienced it, though more benignly,
working in his father's pencil factory.
In short, the business of America was rapidly becoming business,
and through the westward movement and the inevitable destruction
of natural resources and native cultures that accompanied it, America
sought ever-expanding room for that business.
During Thoreau's childhood, however, the railroad had not yet arrived,
and Concord must have seemed a delightfully peaceful place. Thoreau's
parents would take their four children on picnics in the wooded
areas around Concord, one of young Henry's favorite picnic spots
being Walden Pond.
Thoreau received his education at the public school in Concord
and at the private Concord Academy. Proving to be a better scholar
than his more fun-loving and popular elder brother John, he was
sent to Harvard. He did well there and, despite having to drop out
for several months for financial and health reasons, was graduated
in the top half of his class in 1837.
Thoreau's graduation came at an inauspicious time. In 1837
America was experiencing an economic depression and jobs were not
plentiful. Furthermore, Thoreau found himself temperamentally unsuited
for three of the four usual profession s open to Harvard graduates:
the ministry, the law, and medicine. The fourth, teaching, was one
he felt comfortable with, since both of his elder siblings, Helen
and John, were already teachers. He was hired as the teacher of
the Concord public school, bu t resigned after only two weeks because
of a dispute with his superintendent over how to discipline the
children. He applied for other teaching jobs as far away as Kentucky
but could find none. For a while he and John considered seeking
their fortunes in California, but at last he fell back onto working
in his father's pencil factory.
In 1838 he decided to start his own school in Concord, eventually
asking John to help him. The two brothers worked well together and
vacationed together during holid ays. In September 1839 they spent
a memorable week together on a boating trip up the Concord and Merrimack
rivers to Mt. Washington in New Hampshire. About the same time both
brothers became romantically interested in Ellen Sewall, a frequent
visitor to C oncord from Cape Cod. In the fall of the next year,
both brothersfirst John and then Henryproposed marriage
to her. But because of her father's objections to the Thoreaus'
liberal religious views, Ellen rejected both proposals.
When J ohn endured a lengthy illness in 1841, the school
became too much for Henry to handle alone, so he closed it. He returned
to work in the pencil factory but was soon invited to work as a
live-in handyman in the home of his mentor, neighbor, and friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Emerson was by then already one of the most famous American
philosophers and men of letters. Since Thoreau's graduation from
Harvard, he had become a protege of his famous neighbor and an informal
student of Emerson's Transcendental ideas. Transcendentalism
was an American version of Romantic Idealism, a dualistic Neoplatonic
view of the world divided into the material and the spiritual. For
Emerson, "Mind is the only reality, of which all other natures are
better or worse reflectors. Nature, literature, history, are only
subjective phenomena." For the Transcendentalist, the secret of
successful living was to hold oneself above material concerns as
much as possible and focus on the spiritual.
Thoreau must have imbibed Transcendental-ism through almost
every pore during his two years living with Emerson, though he would
modify it to suit his own temperament by granting nature more reality
than Emerson did. During this period, the two men shared tragedy
as well as philosophy. Within just a few weeks in February 1842,
Emerson's young son Waldo died of scarlatina, and Thoreau's brother
died an excruciating death from tetanus. John's death af fected
Thoreau so strongly that he himself developed psychosomatic symptoms
During his stay with Emerson, Thoreau had ambitions to become
a writer and had received help from Emerson in getting some poems
and essays published in the Tra nscendental journal, The Dial.
But by 1843 he and Emerson decided that it might be good for him
to establish contacts with publishers in New York, so Emerson arranged
a job for him as tutor to the children of his brother William Emerson
on Staten I sland. Thoreau, however, quickly found both the teaching
situation and the urban environment intolerable and returned again
to his parents' home in Concord to work in the pencil factory.
But life in his parents' home held problems for the budding
writer. Work in the pencil factory was tedious and tiring, and,
since his mother took in boarders, there was little quiet or privacy
in the house . Remembering a summer visit to the retreat cabin of
a college friend, Charles Stearns Wheeler, he developed a plan to
build such a cabin for himself where he could find privacy to write.
ln 1845 he received permission from Emerson to use a piece
of land that Emerson owned on the shore of Walden Pond. He
bought building supplies and a chicken coop (for the boards), and
built himself a small cabin there, moving in on the Fourth of July.
His main purposes in moving to the pond were to write h is first
book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, as a tribute
to his brother John, and to conduct an economic experiment to see
if it were possible to live by working one day and devoting the
other six to more Transcendental concerns, thu s reversing the Yankee
habit of working six days and resting one. His nature study and
the writing of Walden would develop later during his stay
at the pond. He began writing Walden in 1846 as a lecture
in response to the questions of townsp eople who
were curious about what he was doing out at the pond, but it soon
grew into his second book.
Thoreau stayed in the cabin at Walden Pond for two years,
from July 1845 to September 1847. Walden condenses the
experiences of those two ye ars into one year for artistic unity,
and there is no need to expand here on what Thoreau himself says
of them. However, students may be interested to know what Thoreau
leaves out of his description of those years. He leaves out (or
rather alludes to only briefly), for instance, his famous night
in jail, which occurred in 1846, and a trip to Maine that same year
to climb Mt. Katahdin, a place with a much wilder nature than he
could find around Concord. For details about these experiences,
see the biograph ies listed in the bibliography.
Thoreau would live only fifteen years after leaving Walden
Pond. During that time he published two books, A Week on the
Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849) and Walden (1854).
A Week sold poorly, leading Thoreau to hold off publication
of Walden, so that he could revise it extensively to avoid
the problems, such as looseness of structure and a preaching tone
unalleviated by humor, that had put readers off in the first book.
Walden, which appeared five years later, was a modest success:
it brought Thoreau good reviews, satisfactory sales, and a small
following of fans.
After the Walden Pond years, Thoreau lived again in the Emerson
home from 1847 to 1849 while Emerson was on a lecture tour in Europe,
and then rented a room in his parents' home on Main Street. He made
his living by working in the pencil factory, by doing surveying,
by lecturing occasionally, and by publishing essays in newspapers
and journals. His income, howe ver, was always very modest, and
his main concerns were his daily afternoon walks in the Concord
woods, the keeping of a private journal of his nature observations
and ideas, and the writing and revision of essays for publication.
He also took a series of trips to the Maine woods and to
Cape Cod, which provided material for travel essays published first
in journals and eventually collected into posthumous books, The
Maine Woods and Cape Cod. Other excursions took him to
Canada and, near the end of his life, to Minnesota.
Thoreau died in his parents' home in 1862 of the tuberculosis
with which he had been periodically plagued since his college years.
He left behind large unfinished projects--a comprehensive record
of natural phenomena around Concord and extensive notes on American
Indians--but these promised neither the artistic unity nor the intensity
Pre-Readings Questions and Activities
- Ask students what they know about Henry David Thoreau. Be prepared
to address some of the following common misconceptions:
- Thoreau was a hermit. (He never intended to isolate himself
from others. He went into town r egularly, dined with family and
friends, and received visits from them at the pond.)
- Thoreau was a frontiersman, like Daniel Boone, living
in the wilderness. (Walden Pond is an easy 25-minute walk from Concord's
main street. Even in Thoreau's d ay, it was a popular picnic and
swimming spot, and there were no dangerous wild animals.)
- Thoreau was essentially a loafer. (Thoreau raised beans,
did odd jobs, and did surveying to support himself. At the pond
he also pursued an active schedul e of nature study. When he lived
with his parents he paid rent and worked in the pencil factory.)
- Have students discuss in small groups whether or not it would
be possible today to live by working only one or two days a week.
Could it be done? If no t, why? If so, how? (The trick here is for
them to focus on reducing needs rather than increasing income.)
- Have students write briefly about a special place where they
find peace and refuge.
- An ability to recognize symbolism is crucial to read ing Walden.
To prepare students for symbolic reading of Thoreau's description
of nature, ask them to list things in nature to which we often attach
symbolic meaning (e.g. owl=wisdom, lily=purity, etc.).
- To help students to identify with Thore au's intense observation
of nature, ask each student to choose a small plot of land--e.g.
part of a garden, a yard, a park--and to keep a journal of changes
that they see in this place over a period of time.
Reading Walden can present problems to both high school
and college students because of Thoreau's nineteenth-century vocabulary
and rhetori c, his allusions both classical and contemporary, his
dry Yankee humor, his wordplay, and his brash persona. Therefore,
it is probably wise to read through the first few paragraphs of
Walden when you first assign it, explicating the ideas, wordplay, and humor as you go. Here are a few places on which to focus:
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Materialism vs. Economy
- Because parts of Walden began as a lecture, the book's
meaning sometimes depends on the reader's ability to sense shifts
in emphasis, which in a lecture would be signalled by the speaker's
tone of voice. Try, for instance, the first sentence of the third
paragraph (p. 2), focusing on the clause "who are said to live in
New England." What happens to the meaning if you emphasize the words
"are said"? (The readers' lives are perhaps illusory, just a rumor.)
If you emphasize the word "live"? (Is what people do in New England
really living?) If you emphasize the word "New"? (Is it really new,
or just the same as in "old" England?)
- One critic has found sixteen examples of wordpla y (double meanings,
puns, irony) in just the first three paragraphs of Walden. See
how many your students can find.
- To introduce students to Thoreau's dry ironic humor, read and
discuss with them the hilarious story of Thoreau, the vegetarian
, talking to the farmer with his ox (p7, last paragraph).
- Thoreau's puns are a frequent source of humor in Walden.
Let students identify a few of these. See, for instance, his use
of the words "impertinent" and "pertinent" in the second parag raph
(have students look up their meanings in the dictionary), his variation
on the cliché "when a man dies he kicks the dust" (p. 63,
first paragraph), or the outrageous pun on the ancient word "Coenobites"
to mean "see-no-bites" (p. 164, second paragraph).
- Some students will find Thoreau's persona obnoxious or pompously
preachy. This issue can be raised by discussing with students Thoreau's
comments on his use of the first person and of egotism on pages
one and two. The dialogue between the "Hermit" (Thoreau) and the
"Poet" (his friend William Ellery Channing) at the beginning of
the "Brute Neighbors" chapter (pp. 210212) counteracts the
accusation of egotis m by showing Thoreau making fun of his own
What unifies the structure of Walden has been much debated.
Two of the most frequently noted structural devices are the seasonal
structure (one year from summer to spring) and a dialectical structure
in which pairs of chapters present thematic counterpoints to each
other (e.g. "Reading" vs. "Sounds," "Solitude" vs. "Visitors").
How much is enough?
Bill McKibben's focus on Thoreau's practical advice for living,
however, calls our attention to another structure in which the long
opening chapter, "Economy," provides a diagnosis of what is wrong
with American life: materialism. The body of the book then presents
a cure for the disease of material ism: striving for purity and
simplicity as exemplified by Thoreau's own experience and by the
symbolic purity of Walden Pond. The final chapter presents Thoreau's
optimistic prognosis that each individual reader has the potential
to vastly improve his or her life by shifting priorities.
McKibben's introduction aptly raises the issue of priorities
through the two crucial questions that he finds Thoreau raising
in Walden: How much is enough? and How do I know
what I want? The following discussion questions focus on this.
The questions are grouped under McKibben's two headings,
but also by chapter, though not every chapter is listed under both
headings. No teacher will have time to use all these questions,
but there is enough variety to allow you to select what is most
appropriate to your teaching needs. The questions could be used
as a teacher's guide for discussion, as a written study guide for
students to complete, or as assignments for brief journal or essay
writing. (Some teachers might wish to reverse the order of the two
main questions, since one could argue that we need to know what
we want before we can determine how much of it we need.)
"Where I Lived, and What I Lived For"
- At the top of p. 10 Thoreau begins a long assessment of what,
and how much of it, a person really needs to live. What are the
four necessities of li fe? Eventually he reduces this list to one
basic necessity (p. 11). What is it, and how do the other three
contribute to it?
- How much of each of these necessities does Thoreau think we
need? How much is too much? Give examples from the text and from
your own life to support your answer.
- Clothing (pp. 1924)
- Shelter (pp. 2437)
- On pp. 3745 Thoreau describes how he built his own cabin.
Does it conform to his own advice on how much shelter we need? Give
- Food (pp. 5060)
- Furniture (pp. 6064)
- When a person has more than enough of something, our culture
considers it a good thing to share that abundance with others through
philanthropy (charity). What does Thoreau thin k about philanthropy
(pp. 6773), and why? Do you agree or
disagree, and why?
- Give modern examples of these Thoreavian criticisms of materialistic
- "The head monkey in Paris puts on a traveller's cap, and
all the monkeys in America do the same"
- "And when the farmer has got his house, he may not be
the richer but the poorer for it, and it be the house that has got
him" (p. 30).
- "The consequence is, that while he [the college student]
is reading Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Say [economists studied in college],
he runs his father in debt irretrievably" (p. 48).
- Thoreau says, "the cost of a thing is the amount of what I will
call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately
or in the long run" (p. 28, first paragraph).
- One example of this idea is Thoreau's argument that he
could travel faster by foot than by railroad (pp. 4849). Would
Thoreau's argument work today for railroad travel? For automobile
travel (if you had to buy a new car first)? For airplane travel?
Do some math and explain.
- A Consumer Reports article (June 1992, pp. 39293)
entitled "Has Our Living Standard Stalled?" lists the cost of various
modern items in terms of how many hours one would have t o work
to obtain them. Find this article and compute how many work days
or weeks would be necessary to purchase some of your favorite items.
Do you think that each item is worth the amount of time in your
life that you would have to "spend" for it? Why or why not?
- On p. 86 Thoreau complains, "Our life is frittered away by detail." What do you think he means by this? Give examples from your life.
- Thoreau advises us to "Simplify, simplify" (p. 86). What modern
inventions, new in Thoreau's day, does he question the value of?
What inventions new in your day would you question the value of?
(See McKibben's discussions of television on pp. xii and xviii for comparison.)
How much and what kind of reading do most people consider enough?
How much and what kind would Thoreau think is enough, and why? Give
- According to the description of Thoreau's life at the pond at
the beginning of this chapter (pp. 105108), how much and what
kind of entertainment does a person need to be content? Do you agree?
Why or why not?
- The sound of the railroad whistle leads Thoreau to write at
length (pp. 108116) on the benefits and problems brought by
the railroad. List these benefits and problems. Does Thoreau think
that the benefits outweigh the problems? Why or why not?
How much socializing with other people does Thoreau think is good?
Give examples from this
chapter. Discuss your opinion on this matter.
- In this chapter Thoreau says that "I had three chairs in my
house; one of solitude, two for friendship, three for society" (p.
132). What does this say about how much company and how big a house
Thoreau felt was necessary?
- In his note at the bottom of p. 132, McKibben suggests that
Thoreau might have been distressed to find today that seventy-five
percent of Americans do not know their next-door neighbors. Do you
think that this would indeed have bothered him? Why or why not?
- Thoreau describes the village of Concord as "a great news room" (p. 158). Given his comments on the next couple of pages, how much
news does Thoreau seem to think we need? Comp are Thoreau's comments
on news to McKibben's on pp. xvi-xvii.
- In the last paragraph of this chapter Thoreau comments on his
relation to government through a brief mention of his famous night
in jail and through his loss of a book apparently stolen f rom his
cabin (he later discovered that the Canadian woodchopper had it).
What do these two incidents seem to suggest about how much government
is necessary? Based on his comments, which (if any) political party
do you think Thoreau would favor today? Explain why.
This chapter reminds the reader that how much one needs depends
on an ability to recognize what one has.
Explain why the quality of life of John Field, the Irishman, and
his family is so much poorer than Thoreau's, thou gh Thoreau works
less. What is Thoreau's suggested solution to Field's dilemma (pp.
Food and sex are two basic human needs that Thoreau discusses in
this chapter. But his views on these subjects might seem unusual
to most readers and should spark spirited discussion among students.
- What types of food and how much does Thoreau prefer, and why
- What role does Thoreau think that sex should play in a person's
life? (pp. 2058)
"Former Inhabitants; and Winter Visitors"
- In this chapter Thoreau describes how he built his chimney and
plastered his walls before winter set in. What benefit, both personal
and economic, is there in building something yourself as he did,
rather than having someone else do it ?
- Thoreau describes his ideal of what a house should be like (pp.
229-30). What qualities would such a house have? Which of these
qualities would you want in your ideal house, and which would you
- Pages 23539 contain Thoreau's e ssay on firewood. Why
does every man look at his woodpile "with a kind of affection" (p.
236)? In what way does Thoreau consider a fireplace a genuine improvement
in a person's quality of life (pp. 23839)? In what
way does he find a cookstove not an improvement
In the last half of this chapter, Thoreau mentions three friends
who visited him during the winter: William Ellery Channing (the
poet), Bronson Alcott ("the last of the philosophers" and father of Louisa May), and Ralph Waldo Emerson (with whom he had "solid
seasons"). Why are the personal qualities of these few visitors
more important to him than the number of visitors?
This chapter renews the discussion of an imals begun in the "Brute Neighbors" chapter, but on a more literal level. Why does
Thoreau think common animals such as bluejays, rabbits, and foxes
are an important part of our world? (See especially p. 264.)
Most of us feel guilty a bout our past errors, and we also worry
about preparing for the future. But Thoreau says, "We should be
blessed if we lived in the present always" (p. 294). Explain why
Thoreau thinks that we should focus more on the present.
- How much traveling does Thoreau think we need to do? What kind
of travelling does he think is more important than physical travelling
- On pp. 3078 Thoreau argues that poverty can be a blessing
and that "Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul." Explain what you think he means and whether you agree.
How do I know what I want?
"Where I Lived, and What I Lived For"
- On pp. 23 Thoreau compares his neighbors in New England
to "Chinese and Sandwich Islanders" (Hawaiians) and to Brahmins
in India. Why does
he think that his neighbors' lives are as strange and exotic as
what he has read of the people in those
- On p. 3 Thoreau says that some of his young
fellow townsmen have had the misfortune to inherit
a farm, a house, or other livestock and equipment. Most people would
think that inheriting such things would be good. Why does Thoreau
think that it is bad? Do you agree? Why or why not?
- Americans have always valued hard work as a virtue. Thoreau,
however, argues on pp. 46 that too much work can lead to
a kind of self-imposed slavery and to a life of "quiet desperation"
(p. 6). What kinds of slavery does he think are worse than "Negro
slavery" and why? What is "quiet desperation"? Give example s from
your own life or from people you know.
- On pp. 811 Thoreau complains that most people live a life
of hard work without questioning it. Why do they do this?
- At the top of p. 9 Thoreau attempts to shock the reader into
reassessing hi s or her priorities by saying, "The greater part
of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and
if I repent of any thing, it is very likely to be my good behavior." What kinds of things that his neighbors consider to be good would
Thor eau think were bad? Why? To what extent do you agree with him?
- On pp. 4647 Thoreau raises the issue of what we should
expect to get from an education. He argues that students should
not "play life, or study it merely," but "live it." What doe s he
mean by this? Are there any courses in your school that allow you
to do this? What could you suggest to the administrators and teachers
at your school that would allow you better to apply your studies
to practical living situations?
- At the beginning of this chapter (pp. 7779) Thoreau tells
the story of how he almost bought the Hollowell Farm. Many of the
qualities that made this farm attractive to Thoreau would have made
it very unattractive to most real estate buyers. What were some
of those qualities? What does Thoreau's preference for these qualities
say about the difference between his priorities and those of most
- We are often advised to make a commitment to relationships or
to goals that are important to us. Yet Thoreau advises us at the
bottom of p. 78, "As long as possible live free and uncommitted.
It makes but little difference whether you are committed to a farm
or the county jail." What problems does Thoreau see in su ch commitment?
Do you agree that such problems are good cause to be cautious about
commitment? Why or why not?
- Compare Thoreau's description of the location of his cabin (pp.
7983) to the opening paragraphs of McKibben's introduction
(pp. vii& #173;viii). Why do people seek such places of quiet retreat?
What do they hope to find? How might experiencing such places alter
our priorities? What do Thoreau and McKibben say about this?
- On pp. 8485 Thoreau discusses the importance
of being truly "awake." How does his definition of being awake differ
from the usual definition? How often are you and your friends awake,
by Thoreau's definition?
- On the bottom of p. 85 Thoreau gives us his famous statement
of his purpose in going to live by the pond. How is it possible "to live what was not life"? Give examples from people you know
or have read about.
- A main theme of this chapter is misplaced priorities: Americans'
preference for material rather than spiritual reality. What does
Thoreau mean by the
- "As for work, we haven't any of any consequence" (p. 87).
- "Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths,
while reality is fabulous" (p. 90). Or again on p. 91, "We think
that that is which appears to be."
On pp. 103104 Thoreau accuses village governments of misplacing
their spending priorities. What does Thoreau think villages should
spend less on? More on? Does your town or city seem to share Thoreau's
priorities? Give examples.
Most people take what they see and hear literally, but Thoreau
often finds symbolic value in such things in addition to the literal
value. In the last section of this chapter (pp. 11621) he
describes hearing the s ounds of various animals. Which sounds does
he value simply for the quality of the sound, and to which does
he attach symbolic value? Give examples.
- According to his comments in this chapter, was Thoreau lonely
at the pond? Why or why not?
- What does Thoreau mean by the following
- "I never found the companion that was so companionable
as solitude" (p. 128).
- "I have a great deal of company in my
house; especially in the morning, when nobody
calls" (p. 129).
- Who are the "old settler" and "elderly dame"
(p. 130) whom Thoreau describes as being among
his favorite visitors at the pond?
- Thoreau spends much of this chapter (pp. 13642) describing
his encounters with a Canadian woodchopper (Alek Therien). What
qualities does Thoreau admire in the woodchopper, and why (see es
pecially pp. 14142)? What limitations does the woodchopper have?
To what extent does Thoreau
see his life as a model for others to emulate?
- At the end of this chapter (pp. 14345) Thoreau comments
briefly on other kinds of people who came to the Walden woods. Who
was he glad to see and why? Which people gave him cause to worry,
and why ?
- What does Thoreau mean by his famous pun, "I was determined
to know beans" (p. 152)? What was the practical value of his experience
growing beans as a cash crop? (He sold them to get rice.) What was
the symbolic value?
- 2. What lesson in "ecology" (the word had not yet been invented
in Thoreau's day) does the bean field teach Thoreau (pp. 15657)?
In contrast to the busy-ness of the village, Thoreau recounts the
dreamy peacefulness of feel ing his way to the cabin at night in
the dark. He also tells of how less experienced townsmen who found
themselves in the woods at night might easily get lost. To Thoreau,
however, getting lost was not a bad thing, because "Not till we
are lost, in other words, not t ill we have lost the world, do we
begin to find ourselves" (p. 162). What shift in our usual priorities
does this comment suggest? Give examples.
This is one of the most symbol-laden chapters in Walden;
it presents the pond as having human character. Thoreau introduces
the symbolic mode at the end of his opening to the chapter, as he
ta lks about fishing at night, when, he says, "I caught two fishes
as it were with one hook" (p. 166), a literal fish and a "symbolic" fish (e.g. an idea).
- In what ways are the following qualities of Walden Pond symbolic
of human qualities for which Th oreau thinks we should strive?
- Its depth and the purity of its water (p. 166, 182, 188)
- Its colors, blue and green (p. 167), and its position
between land and sky (p. 178)
- Its role as "earth's eye" (p. 176)
- The pond as a mirror (p. 178)
- What undesireable human qualities are symbolized by Flint's
Pond (pp. 18386)?
What is the moral of Thoreau's story about his fishing with John
Field (p. 196)?
Throughout Walden Thoreau expresses affection for and delight
in the physical details of nature. In this chapter, however, he
seems to reject the value of physical nature: "Nature is hard to
be overcome, but she must be overc ome" (p. 207). The conflict between
physical and spiritual priorities is a main theme of this chapter.
- What value does Thoreau think that physical activities such
as hunting and fishing have (pp. 197201; see also pp. 26667)?
- What d oes Thoreau think is the danger of sensuality, and what
solution to that problem does he suggest (pp. 2059)? How convincing
do you find his solution to be, and why?
This chapter to some extent reverses the emphasis of the previous
chapter: Thoreau the Hermit in the introduction to the chapter chooses
to go "a-fishing" rather than continue his spiritual meditation.
But he also says that animals are all "beasts of burden" (p. 212)
in carrying symbolic meaning.
"Former Inhabitants; and Winter Visitors"
- What purpose or implied symbolic meaning do you think some of
the animals that Thoreau describes (mice, birds, otters) might have
in the larger scheme of things?
- What lessons seem to be contained in Thoreau's description of
the following encounters with animals?
- The ant war (pp. 21518)
- The game of "checkers" with the loon on the pond (pp.
How do the descriptions of the lives of former inhabitants of the
Wal den woods call into question the value that we put on houses
and material possessions?
"The Pond in Winter"
This chapter on the pond, like the earlier one, must be read symbolically
to be fully appreciated. Again the pond is presented as an analog
to the human condition.
- On pp. 26870 Thoreau describes his search for the bottom
of Walden Pond, which many considered to be bottomless. He does
find the depth of the pond but seems to have mixed feelings about
this factual evidence. What is the value of b eing able to prove
something as a fact? What, on the other hand, is the value of letting
some things remain mysterious (p. 270, first paragraph; see also
his comments on the "mysterious and unexplorable" on p. 297)? What
do such questions have to do with our individual religious beliefs?
- Thoreau compares his measurements of the depth of Walden Pond
to a way by which we might evaluate human ethical behavior (pp.
27173). What does this comparison suggest about how we should
judge ourselves, as w ell as other people?
- The last part of this chapter concerns the practice of cutting
blocks of ice on the pond to sell for refrigeration. (See if any
students have grandparents who remember actual "ice box" refrigerators
from earlier in this century. ) But the ice also has symbolic meaning
for Thoreau. Examine the last several paragraphs of the chapter
and discuss what that symbolic meaning might be.
- A major theme of this chapter is resurrection, the potential for
each person to c hange his or her priorities and start life anew.
Explain how the following serve as symbols of resurrection:
- The thawing sand bank (pp. 28589)
- The melting ice on Walden Pond (p. 291)
- The influx of light (p. 291, bottom)
- Wildness (p. 297)
- The dead horse by the path (p. 297, bottom)
- This last chapter returns to the theme of finding a solid bottom,
something to believe in as being essentially true (see, for instance,
earlier passages on p. 92 and p. 26870). To what extent does
the st ory of the traveller in the swamp (p. 309) suggest that it
is pos-sible to find such essential truth?
- This chapter can also be viewed as Thoreau's prognosis for the
reader's spiritual recovery, based on Thoreau's own experience living
by the pond. Discuss how the following passages suggest the possiblility
of a favorable future:
- "I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there.
Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and
could not spare any more time for that one" (p. 302).
- "If you have built castles in the air, your work need
not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations
under them" (p. 303).
- "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps
it is because he hears a different drummer" (p. 305).
- "Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth" (p. 309).
- "Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more
day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star" (p. 312).
After Reading Walden
To sum up, it might be useful have students wrestle with one or
more of the following questions:
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- Does Thoreau expect us all to go live by a pond and reject all
modern conveniences? Before answering, consider the following passages
- pp. 1314, p. 66, p. 155.
- Do you think it would be possible to do today what Thoreau did
at Walden Pond? Why or why not?
- Both Thoreau in Walden and McKibben in his Introduction
use spec ific technological innovations as examples of supposed
improvements in life that might not be improvements at all. Thoreau,
for instance, discusses the railroad in the "Sounds" chapter, and
McKibben focusses on television. Choose a twentiethcentury invent
ion other than television and discuss how it has both improved our
lives and how it might in fact have made our lives worse.
- After reading Walden, what ideas in it impressed you
enough to make you want to change your life, and why? What parts
do you still disagree with, and why?
- Find a newspaper or magazine article that relates to an idea
in Walden. Explain the connection to your classmates.
- Have students identify ecological issues or projects around
your school and town an d encourage them to participate in discussing
these issues or completing these projects (recycling and conservation
efforts are obvious options here).
There are a number of useful audio and video supplements a vailable
for teaching Walden. There is a background video entitled
Concord, Massachusetts (available from The Thoreau Society
Shop at Walden Pond, 915 Walden Street, Concord, MA 017424511),
which gives useful information on literary an d historical sites.
The best video on Thoreau is Thoreau's Walden: A Video Portrait
(available from Photovision, 7 Minola Rd., Lexington, MA 02173,
or from The Shop at Walden Pond); it effectively combines video
scenes of Walden Pond with well chos en quotations from Walden.
Relatively recent popular movies with Thoreauvian themes include
Amazing Grace and Chuck, Dead Poets Society, and Awakenings.
A PBS documentary titled "Affluenza" examines the modern malady
of having more and enjoying it less; it also features Joe Dominguez
and Vicki Robin, two advocates of simpler living mentioned in McKibben's
introduction. For a fuller list of supplements, see pp. 2021
of Richard Schneider, Approaches to Teaching Thoreau's Walden
and Other Works (listed in the bibliography).
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The following books may be useful to teachers desiring more factual
or critical background. For basic facts about Thoreau's life, see
Walter Hardi ng's The Days of Henry Thoreau. Richard Lebeaux
probes Thoreau's psychology in two useful volumes, Young Man
Thoreau and Thoreau's Seasons. Robert Richardson offers
a fascinating exploration of Thoreau's intellectual growth through
a history of his eclectic reading in Henry David Thoreau: A Life
of the Mind. For a brief general critical biography, try Richard
Schneider's Henry David Thoreau.
The best critical studies of Walden for beginning
students are F . O. Matthiessen's chapters on Walden in The
American Renaissance, Charles Anderson's The Magic Circle
of Walden, and Martin Bickman's Volatile Truths. Three
good recent collections of critical essays are Joel Myerson's Crit
ical Essays on Henry David Thoreau's Walden, Robert Sayre's
New Essays on Walden, and William Rossi's gathering in the
Norton Critical Edition of Walden.
One other unusual collection that could be useful is Henley
and Marsh's Heaven Is Under Our Feet, a collection of brief
tributes to Thoreau by not only authors and scholars, but also public
figures and entertainers such as Jimmy Carter, Ted Kennedy, Jack
Nicholson, and Whoopi Goldberg.
Those needing more extensive biogra phical or critical sources
can go to one of these three bibliographical sources: Walter Harding
and Michael Meyer's The New Thoreau Handbook, the chapter
on Thoreau in Joel Myerson's The Transcendentalists: A Review
of Research and Criticism, or the "Materials" section of Approaches
to Teaching Thoreau's Walden and Other Works, by Richard J.
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- Anderson, Charles R. The Magic Circle of Walden. New York:
Holt, Rinehart, 1968.
- Bickman, Martin. Volatile Truths. N ew York: Macmillan,
- Harding, Walter. The Days of Henry Thoreau. New York: Dover,
- __________ and Michael Meyer. The New Thoreau Handbook.
New York: New York UP, 1980.
- Henley, Don and Dave Marsh, eds. Heaven is Under Our Feet.
Stamford: Longmeadow, 1991.
- Lebeaux, Richard. Thoreau's Seasons. Amherst: U of Massachusetts
- __________. Young Man Thoreau. Amherst: U of Massachusetts
- Matthiessen, F. O. The American Renaissanc e: Art and Expression
in the Age of Emerson and Whitman. New York: Oxford UP, 1941.
- Myerson, Joel, ed. Critical Essays on Henry David Thoreau's
Walden. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1988.
- ___________, ed. The Transcendentalists: A Review of Resear
ch and Criticism. New York: MLA, 1984.
- Richardson, Robert D. Henry David Thoreau: A Life of the Mind. Berkeley: U of California P, 1986.
- Sayre, Robert, ed. New Essays on Walden. Cambridge: Cambridge
- Schneider, Richard J . Henry David Thoreau. Boston: Twayne,
- __________, ed. Approaches to Teaching Thoreau's Walden and
Other Works. New York: MLA, 1996.
- Thoreau, Henry David. Walden and "Civil Disobedience." Norton
Critical Edition. Second ed. Ed. William Rossi. New York: Norton,