How Did Thoreau Create Identity?

The goal of Transcendentalist writers during Henry David Thoreau’s lifetime was to create an identity of their own, an identity which they could be proud of and grow alongside their country. Early American writers were constantly grouped with Europeans in their style and ideas, meanwhile Americans they had already fought for their independence from British rule. Americans sought to escape their European ancestry and create a culture that could be identified as their own. The goal of Transcendentalist writers during Henry David Thoreau’s lifetime was to create an identity of their own; an identity which they could be proud of, and one which could flourish alongside their youthful country. In his intricate works of literature, Thoreau constantly references Greek and Roman Mythology, which
They attached me to the earth, and so I got strength like Antaeus” (Thoreau 199). Referring to Antaeus, a giant who draws strength from the earth, his mother, in Greek mythology, Thoreau creates a simile between the strength that he gains from the earth with Antaeus. The movement he is representing in his writing and ideas encourages breaking free from the values of European culture, but he wrongly incorporates them into his own writing. A main figure in the movement of Transcendentalism, Henry David Thoreau should have worked to draw European values and ideas out of his writing, but he did the exact opposite. Thoreau brought ideas that should have been escaping American literature back into his writing, going against the need of his fellow Transcendentalist writers. Contradictory to his Transcendentalist values, Thoreau’s lifestyle and incorporation of European values in his writing, and he fails to create the American style of literature that his fellow writers had so longed