Pursuit Of An Ideal Life

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) is one of the greatest writers of America in the nineteenth century. During his lifetime, he kept writing essays, books, poems, journal entries, and what he wrote has become an important part of American literary and cultural heritage. However, his value has not been paid enough attention to until the world is troubled by the ecological crisis and the Environmental Movement emerges. Today he is commonly regarded as a nature writer and is considered as the first major interpreter of nature in American literary history, and the first American environmentalist saint. Walden, Thoreau's masterpiece, is based on Thoreau's experience at Walden Pond where he lived alone for twenty six months.Thoreau is a keen observer of nature and devotes most of his life to the exploration of nature. For him, nature is a teacher, a companion in one's solitude and the home for human beings. Regarding nature as a good companion, he is never tired of staying alone with it. He depicts nature as clothed in the spirit, but also included human beings as its proper parts. By dwelling in nature for a long time, Thoreau discovers the kinship existing between nature and human beings. He thus strongly oppose, to materialism and industrialization, which, in his opinion, brings about the degeneration of people's spirit and the ruin of original beauty in the world. For many readers, Walden is a difficult book to read because of his precise and extended diction and usage of rhetoric devices. However, it is this difficulty which results in Walden's openness, and it can be understood from many perspectives and thus needs constant interpretation.Basing on a detailed analysis of Walden, this thesis explores an important theme of Walden. This is important for us to understand Thoreau's life philosophy and the constituent of American culture. The main body of this thesis is divided into three chapters.Chapter one analyzes the reasons for Thoreau to go to Walden, including a discussion of historical background, intellectual background and Thoreau's pursuit of individual development. When going to Walden, Thoreau did not intend to be a hermit, but to isolate himself from civil society to gain a more objective understanding of it. Thoreau lives at a time when America has gradually transformed from an agricultural society to an industrial society. People are intoxicated with gaining material wealth by exploiting others---both nature and human beings and abandons spiritual development. Thoreau criticizes those who are gradually forgetting living itself but trying to make a living. Trying to awaken his townsmen, he must keep awake himself and find an ideal life-style. The second reason for Thoreau to go to Walden is to put the principles of transcendentalism into practice. Thoreau is a transcendentalist but not a thorough-going transcendentalist. He is a transcendentalist because he is a worshipper of nature and he believes that his self-reliant responses to all things will lead him to truth, goodness, beauty. He differs from other transcendentalists because he has doubts concerning material progress such as the postal service. On the whole, transcendentalism benefits him a lot in inspiring him to go back to nature. The last and most direct reason is that Thoreau wants to find new career directions and pursues individual development.Chapter two analyzes the living experiment Thoreau carries out at Walden. We can understand his experiment at Walden from three perspectives: the natural life, the scientific life and the literary life. He lives a simple life and limits his necessities to the least. In his opinion, only in this way can he truly live in this world rather than become a slave of making a living. He patiently observes nature, treats other animals as an equal, personalizes the natural world and becomes a participant of the new world through his unique perception. He also tries to cultivate qualities necessary for a scientific life. He observes nature like a scientist and lives his life deliberately. At Walden, each day he spends at least four hours, usually in the afternoon, sauntering and reporting the seasons. Thoreau's scientific observations are interesting, more than just observations. He tries to look through the surface to find the rules. By penetrating through the appearance and into truth, he becomes a seer of his natural world. Wanting to be a writer, Thoreau cultivates his career as a writer through the inspiration obtained from the natural world. His angle of vision is romantic and he tries to merge into nature via aesthetic approaches.Chapter three focuses on Thoreau's reflection on the relationship between humanity and nature. Through the living experiment at Walden, Thoreau recognizes that human beings are only part "in the whole" of nature. All beings at Walden are equal creatures of nature and he cherishes the nature that he is so acquainted with as a good companion. For him, unlike his townsmen who exploit nature and only see its economic value, nature has an intrinsic value and has even divinity and dignity as well. Thoreau gets great inspiration from nature's aliveness and is infused with everlasting wild affections for it. To him, the wild nature is beautiful, and one could hear God's voice there. Nature is the source of happiness and harmony and the sweet remedy for a soul. Thoreau criticizes people's dominance over nature and tries to prevent nature from the industrious and technological damages. He points out that human beings should have a reverence for nature and learn to coexist with nature harmoniously. Thoreau is the first who clearly and definitely calls for preservation of the wilderness.Through a fairly detailed analysis of Walden, we are in a better position to assess Thoreau's life philosophy. His ideal of a good life is to live a simple principled life and to live with nature harmoniously. At Walden Pond, Thoreau puts this belief into practice and proves the feasibility of this kind of life-style. In his later life, he has been insisting on living in this way. In today's society, there is immense increase in material prosperity and people's desire for wealth has been expanding. The technological revolution in our time also reaches a point where man is in real danger of becoming a machine and thinking like a machine. Thoreau's way of simple living provides a good way for us to get rid of spiritual crises and live a meaningful life. A thematic analysis of Thoreau's Walden also helps us to suck the marrow of American culture and is a revelation to the construction of Chinese culture.