Thoreau’s Walden

Henry David Thoreau - Rebel While a student at Harvard, there was a tradition and rule that required all students to wear a black coat to chapel. Purposely, he rebelled from this custom by wearing a green jacket.

Thoreau - REBEL In an act of civil disobedience, he protested the Mexican War by not paying taxes that would help fund the conflict. He felt the goal of the war was to expand slaveholding territory, and he believed slavery was wrong. He spent a night in jail and wrote “Resistance to Civil Government” This essay inspired other rebels—such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Henry David Thoreau At 28, considered a failure Quit teaching because he refused to whip children Lectures were uninspiring A woman turned down his marriage proposal Some friends found him “tedious and tiresome”

Thoreau’s experiment wanted to experiment with living a simple, self-sufficient life, where he would be surrounded by the beauty of nature thought his fellow citizens were so caught up in making a living and acquiring possessions that their lives had become one-dimensional

from the graphic novel Thoreau at Walden by John Porcellino

Thoreau’s experiment In 1845, he moved to a small plot just outside Concord, Massachusetts on Walden Pond—land owned by fellow Transcendentalist writer, Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Re-creation of Thoreau’s Cabin On a very small budget, he built himself a tiny cabin to live in and stayed for two years. Re-creation of Thoreau’s Cabin

Re-creation of Thoreau’s Cabin

Thoreau’s experiment He attempted to live off of food that he farmed himself—which mainly consisted of a LOT of beans. In fact, he said he was determined to “know beans,” giving birth to the idiom “you don’t know beans.” 

Thoreau’s experiment He did purchase some items in town that he could not do without—namely, molasses and rice. He grew twelve bushels of beans and eighteen bushels of potatoes his first year and sold most of it.  His whole income from his farm (as he called it) was $23.44.

Thoreau’s experiment He was not a hermit. He had people over and did go into town to eat with friends. And it was rumored that he sometimes stole pies from his neighbors’ window sills. Do I smell pie?

Walden Pond - map drawn and scaled by Thoreau in 1846

Walden Pond

Walden Pond

Walden Pond

Walden Pond

Thoreau’s Grave

Ironic cartoons with allusions to Thoreau Cartoons with allusions to Thoreau’s philosophy Ironic cartoons with allusions to Thoreau

Ironic cartoons with allusions to Thoreau Cartoons with allusions to Thoreau’s ideas Ironic cartoons with allusions to Thoreau

Thoreau’s Influence

Modern movements modeled after Thoreau’s Walden

Let’s look at the Walden handout and read the first paragraph.

The following example is a decoding of the first paragraph in your handout. When paraphrasing, though you are presenting Thoreau’s ideas, YOU are now the writer, so use THIRD-PERSON POV. In passages where Thoreau is criticizing our behavior or offering advice, you can also use “WE,” FIRST-PERSON PLURAL. Thoreau goes to live in nature by himself so he can more honestly experience and understand what it means to be alive. He plans to attempt to live in a simple, disciplined way—a life of asceticism—without the comforts or distractions of society. He’s willing to embrace and wants to write about the truth of his experience—whether it turns out to be unpleasant, difficult, common, or beautiful.