Examples Of Transcendentalism In Walden

Like “Nature” there are many recurring themes of Transcendentalism in Henry David Thoreau's piece “Walden”. In this story Thoreau begins by explaining why he went into nature. He left society to avoid consistency and to learn things about himself from nature. He wished to simplify his life to the bare minimum and to discover the only things that he needed in his life to survive. He says “Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers… and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!” (253) Thoreau believed that people complicate their own lives too much. People always stress and complain about everything that they have to do and everything that they have to take on but what they don’t realize is that most of
the stressors in their life wouldn’t be present if they simplified their life to the bare minimum. Thoreau doesn’t see why people are always in such a rush. Everyone is always waiting for the weekend or waiting until they are eighteen that they are never cherishing the moment they are currently in.
When he says “he lives in the dark unfathomed mammoth cave of this world.” (254) he is explaining what happens when people care too much about what is going on around them.
Thoreau doesn’t believe in the news or the mail system. He believes that always paying attention to the news of things around him will blind an individual from himself and keep him in the dark. He also writes about how he has “never received more than one or two letters that were worth the postage.” (254) Henry David Thoreau left the woods for the same reason that he arrived. He believed that he learned all that he could from the situation and in order to avoid consistency he was going to open a new chapter in his life and see what he learns from the new path. He learned that the world follows so much tradition and conformity, which he did not want to participate in. One of the most important things that he learned from living in the woods was that “if one advances confidently in the direction of their dreams… he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” In other words if someone works are hard as they can they will always be successful and they will be capable of putting the past behind them and embracing the
future. There are many similarities between Ralph Waldo Emerson’s piece “Nature” and Henry David Thoreau’s piece “Walden.” Both pieces connect to Transcendentalism. They both talk about getting answers from nature, relying only on one’s self, all answers are within, and everyone is capable of goodness. They were both about the author going out into nature and living there by themselves, relying on only themselves for a period of about two years. Both authors learned a lot about themselves and their view of society. Like similarities there are many differences about the two stories “Nature” by Emerson and “Walden” by Thoreau. One major difference is the tone in the two stories. Emerson talks in a way that tells the reader that doing what he did would really change an individual's life. He urges people to find their own way of discovering their answers. Thoreau’s piece is much more preachy and pushy. Thoreau believes that all of his ideas are right and that if an individual feels differently about one of his ideas that they are wrong. In conclusion the pieces “Nature” by Ralph Waldo Emerson and “Walden” by Henry David Thoreau have many similarities and differences. They both speak about many of the same ideas of the transcendentalists while both being written in different tones. The one thing that is stressed over and over again in both of the pieces is the importance of nature when trying to discover a persons true meaning and true self.