Reading Questions: Thoreau’s Walden
Key Concepts for Walden
• Labor
• Materialism
• Freedom/Slavery/Independence
• Self-reliance
• Individualism
• Experience (personal)
• Primitive/Civilized
• Necessaries of Life
• Wilderness/Landscape
“Economy”
1. In “Economy,” Thoreau is very much concerned with the concept of Labor. Look for moments when Thoreau addresses this issue throughout the chapter. What does he have to say about labor? He also seems to see different dimensions of labor—physical, emotional, and intellectual. Look for moments in which he addresses these different types of work, and note how he sees them differently.
2. Thoreau clearly privileges personal experience over learning from others’ past experiences. Look for passages in which Thoreau suggests the importance of personal experience. Why does he privilege personal experience?
3. Thoreau suggests that the most dangerous slave driver is “the slave driver of the self” (49). What does he mean by this? In what way(s) is slavery of the self worse than slavery of the body? Look for passages in which Thoreau returns to the idea of slavery of the self and suggests the need to work towards freedom. In what sense does he use the word freedom? Freedom from what?
4. Why is it significant that Thoreau moves into his house on July 4th?
5. Why does Thoreau give us the breakdown of his living costs and the amount he earned through farming?
6. One important tenet of Transcendentalism is the idea of self-reliance. Look for passages in which Thoreau treats this topic. What are his thoughts on self-reliance?
“Where I Lived, and What I Lived For”
1. What does the narrator mean when he says “a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone” (126)?
2. In this chapter, Thoreau gives us some hints as to why he has written this narrative of his time at Walden Pond, and also why he chose to do this experiment in the first place. Look for passages in which he indicates his rationale for both.
3. There are several moments in this chapter in which the importance of the imagination is discussed. In what ways is the imagination important for Thoreau?
4. What is Thoreau getting at when he talks about the need for men to be awake? In what sense does he mean this?
5. For the Transcendentalists, perception, or the way we look at things and interpret them, creates meaning. Look for passages in which this idea is articulated by Thoreau. How can the assignment of meaning to things within the world be a source of power?
6. What does the narrator mean when he says: “I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born” (142)?
“Reading”
1. What differences does the narrator establish between the Orator and the Writer? Why does he privilege one over the other?
2. Thoreau establishes a difference between “reading” and Reading.” Identify the two different types of reading Thoreau establishes and explain why he privileges one over the other.
“Sounds”
1. In this chapter, the narrator describes the hours he spends simply sitting in his doorway and letting the time pass. What value does he see in this exercise? In what way(s) is it not time wasted, but rather, time well spent?
2. This chapter deals at length with the railroad. How does a chapter about “sounds” become about the railroad? How does he get started on this topic, and what problems with the railroad does he point out? Why are these problems for him?
3. The narrator notes the various smells that he notices as the trains pass by. Why does he point this out to us?
4. Why does the narrator seem to find the church bells less of an intrusion than the train whistle?
5. Note the progression of sounds: from train to church bells to cows to birds, etc. What significance might this progression have?
“Solitude”
1. What does the following passage suggest that the narrator recognizes about his relationship to nature? “The gentle rain which waters my beans and keeps me in the house to-day is not drear and melancholy, but good for me too. Though it prevents my hoeing them, it is of far more worth than my hoeing. If it should continue so long as to cause the seeds to rot in the ground and destroy the potatoes in the low lands, it would still be good for the grass on the uplands, and, being good for the grass, it would be good for me” (176).
2. The narrator doesn’t think of his life in the woods as lonely; in fact, he sees this as a good type of solitude. Look for passages in which he explains the benefits he sees in solitude.
3. One of the most significant points the narrator attempts to make in this chapter is that physical closeness is much different than mental closeness. What does he mean when he says: “What sort of space is that which separates a man from his fellows and makes him solitary? I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another” (178)? Locate other passages in which he discusses these two types of closeness, and think about the differences he establishes between them.
“Visitors”
1. Interestingly, the narrator’s ode to solitude is immediately followed by his claim in this chapter that “I think I love society as much as most, and am ready enough to fasten myself like a bloodsucker for the time to any full-blooded man that comes in my way” (185). He seems to want us to note the contradiction, and for us to think about how he can say something like this right after a chapter on the virtues of solitude. How does this chapter relate to what he has to say about solitude?
2. What is the narrator suggesting when he says: “If we would enjoy the most intimate society with that in each of us which is without, or above, being spoken to, we must not only be silent, but commonly so far apart bodily that we cannot possibly hear each other’s voice in any case” (186)? What does he really mean here? Or do we take him literally? Is he suggesting there’s a difference between talking and communicating?
3. The Canadian wood-chopper is set up as an ideal man. What qualities does the narrator see in/attribute to the wood-chopper? In what ways is he the ideal we should work towards?
“The Bean-Field”
1. The narrator refers to his own bean field as “the connecting link between wild and cultivated fields” (203). What does he mean by this, and how is his home at Walden Pond also like a “connecting link” between the primitive and the civilized? Does he seem to suggest this is the ideal? Why?
2. After spending a good amount of time telling us about the cultivation of his own beans, the narrator then says: “Why concern ourselves so much about our beans for seed, and not be concerned at all about a new generation of men?” (210). How do you make sense in this seemingly contradiction? How is his method of husbandry superior to the methods of other farmers?
3. What does the narrator seem to recognize about his relationship to the land when he says: “This broad field which I have looked at so long and looks not to me as the principle cultivator, but away from me to influences more genial to it, which water and make it green” (211-12)? Do you recall moments from other chapters in which he has made similar claims?
“The Village”
1. What differences does the narrator point out between life in the village and life at Walden Pond? What is the significance of these distinctions?
2. What does the narrator mean when he says: “Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations” (217). On one level (micro) he is referring to people actually losing their way in nature. How might he mean this on a larger (macro/symbolic) level? What is important about the fact that he can find his way home in the dark without the use of his eyes?
“The Ponds”
1. What does the narrator mean when he says: “It is a vulgar error to suppose that you have tasted huckleberries who never plucked them” (220)? Look for specific lines from the text to support your answer. In what ways is his claim here similar to his later discussion of the townspeople’s removal of the forests for wood and the piping of water from Walden Pond to town (i.e. pg. 239)?
2. Thoreau constantly describes everyday, common occurrences at the pond in a very literal way, but he also tends to have a second layer of meaning he intends (i.e. the micro and macro). How might we read the following passage metaphorically: “Not a fish can leap or an insect fall on the pond but it is thus reported in circling dimples, in lines of beauty, as it were the constant welling up of its foundation, the gentle pulsing of its life, the heaving of its breast” (235)?
3. Why is Thoreau so angered that the farmer named Flint Pond after himself? Look for lines and passages that address this topic. In what ways does this connect to the ideas from question #1?
“Baker Farm”
1. The narrator suggests that John Field and his family would greatly benefit from adopting the type of lifestyle he has developed at Walden. Why does he feel they would benefit from this simple life? For what reasons are the Fields kept from pursuing this simple lifestyle? Look for specific lines and passages in which Thoreau addresses this.
“Higher Laws”
1. The narrator tells us: “I found in myself, and still find, an instinct toward a higher, or, as it is named, spiritual life, as do most men, and another toward a primitive rank and savage one, and I reverence them both” (257). Why does he reverence both? Look for passages in which we find the narrator valuing either a spiritual life or a primitive life. What are the benefits of finding a happy medium between the two?
2. Why might the narrator make the following claim: People who spend their lives in the woods (like wood choppers and hunters, etc) “are often in a more favorable mood for observing” nature “than philosophers or poets even, who approach her with expectation” (258)? How does this idea connect to other passages we have looked at in previous chapters? What theme that we have discussed does it seem to relate to?
“Brute Neighbors”
1. The narrator tells us about two different encounters he has with animals in great detail (i.e. the ant battle and the loon on the pond). Choose one and determine why he might share these incidents with us, and what he learns from them/wants his reader to learn from them.
“House-Warming”
1. Come winter, the narrator seems to delight in the warmth of his house and the glow of the fire, and notes that: “Even the wildest animals love comfort and warmth as well as man, and they survive the winter only because they are so careful to secure them” (300). How might we connect what he says here to his earlier claims about the “necessaries of life” in the first chapter, “Economy”?
“Former Inhabitants”
1. In this chapter we learn about the many people who once had homes in Walden Wood. Now they and their homes are gone. Why might the narrator tell us about these people and point out what condition their former homes are now in?
“Winter Animals”
1. In this chapter the narrator asks: “may there not be a civilization going on among brutes as well as men?” (320). Can you think of other passages throughout the text in which the same idea is expressed? Why does the narrator want us to see connections between animals and humans?
“The Pond in Winter”
1. What is the narrator getting at when he claims: “It is remarkable how long men will believe in the bottomlessness of a pond without taking the trouble to sound it” (333)?
2. Why does the narrator find the carting off of the ice so troubling?
“Spring”
1. Why would Thoreau choose to end his narrative with Spring? What does that season seem to represent for him?
2. There are several passages in this chapter that follow the micro/macro structure. Look for passages in which, on the literal, microscopic level, the narrator is talking about nature, yet is also suggesting a larger (macro), more universal meaning that we as humans should take away from the literal example.
“Conclusion”
1. What does the narrator mean when he tells us: “I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there” (371)? Look for other lines/passages in the chapter to support your answer.
2. Thoreau uses the conclusion to sum up his ideas and to make one last appeal to his reader. He seems to see it as his last chance to get his main points across. Look for lines or passages that you feel are his last words of advice that he most especially wants the reader to take away from the reading experience.
3. As you have now finished Walden, think about what you take away from it. Have you gained anything, and if yes, what? In what ways do you find connections to our own society/culture/world today?