by Effie Moore Salem

Created on: May 21, 2008   Last Updated: January 21, 2010

Henry David Thoreau, in his quest to find how to live inexpensively, and with as few cares as possible, took to the woods around Walden Pond in Massachusetts from the years 1845 to 1847. There he hewed for himself a shack out of nearby poles and planted a garden and lived quite frugally while he wrote of his experiences.

His friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who had on occasion hired him as a farm hand and helper, was quite pleased with "Walden", the book that resulted from the intense effort and dedication. It serves as a classic example of individualism and is on every serious student's reading list.

Thoreau used the first person voice in writing and this showed his desire to tell his story as only he knew it and to involve himself intimately with every detail of the experience. He explained it this way: "We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first person that is speaking. I should not talk so much about myself if there were any body else whom I knew as well."

He liked to think his own thoughts and he wanted to analyze them and to find unique and truthful ways of making them tell of his inner most being and of his particular way of thinking on any subject at any time in his life. In this situation with Walden, where the spirit of this freedom of thought and action was uppermost in his mind, he set out to explain his lifestyle to others so that they would become less occupied with the little niceties of life, and more concerned with eternity. In this way they could become more acquainted with and interactive with the natural life, as he believed they should: "Think, also, of the ladies of the land weaving toilet cushions against the last day, As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.

Although association with Emerson gave him ideas and thoughts on the transcendent philosophy of the day, he was not actually an avid participant. Emerson was a minister, Thoreau was not. He was simply a partaker of the most robust form of life he knew. It is well, however, to note that possibly he was not one hundred percent in favor of such a rugged life. There must have some small virtue in comfort and an easier lifestyle.  Had he not been convinced of this, he would lived at his shack longer than the "two years and two months" that he lived there. Of course, he had to get back to civilization to hone his writing to its best appeal and to toward its its publication. What is publication without readers?

Although a rugged individualist through and through, he was not above showing a little of his exceptional knowledge and here and there in his book he name-dropped a few of the authors of old to give himself a little clout. On page 181 he quoted a character from out of Chaucer: (A nun speaking) "yave not of the text of a pulled hen/ that saith not hunters be holy men." In this quotation he wanted to let it be known that that fishing and hunting was somehow, in some distant way related to holiness; at least the kind of holiness that Thoreau revered. We must not forget the kind of religion he worshiped was individualism.

Henry David, "Walden: On Life in the Woods, 1973, Anchor Books

Learn more about this author, Effie Moore Salem.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.