Walden_walden

Walden由刀豆文库小编整理，希望给你工作、学习、生活带来方便，猜你可能喜欢“walden”。

Walden

Summary Walden(first published as Walden;or,Life in the Woods)by Henry David Thoreau is one of the best-known non-fiction books written by an American.Published in 1854,it details Thoreau's sojourn in a cabin near Walden Pond,amidst woodland owned by his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson,near Concord,Maachusetts.Thoreau lived at Walden for two years,two months,and two days,but Walden was written so that the stay appears to be a year,with expreed seasonal divisions.Thoreau did not intend to live as a hermit,for he received visitors and returned their visits.Instead,he hoped to isolate himself from society in order to gain a more objective understanding of it.Simplicity and self-reliance were Thoreau's other goals,and the whole project was inspired by Transcendentalist philosophy.However the house was not in wilderne but at the edge of town,1.5 miles(2.4 km)from his family home,and his mother cooked him meals and cleaned the house.When Walden was published in 1854, it was not well accepted by people.Instead it was regarded as “wicked and heathenish”.It was published only one time until Thoreau died of disease.But many years later especially in twentieth century, it was gradually known and appreciated by lots of readers all over the world.Economy is the first chapter and also the longest by far.Thoreau begins by outlining his project: a two-year and two-month stay at a crude cabin in the woods near Walden Pond.He does this,he says,in order to illustrate the spiritual benefits of a simplified lifestyle.He

easily

supplies

the

four

neceities

of

life(food,shelter,clothing,and fuel).He meticulously records his expenditures and earnings,demonstrating his understanding of “economy,” as he builds his house and buys and grows food.For a home and freedom,he spends a mere $28.12.Then Thoreau discourses on the benefits of reading claical literature and bemoans the lack of sophistication in Concord,manifested in the popularity of popular literature.He yearns for a utopian time when each New England village will support “wise men” to educate and thereby ennoble the population.Thoreau goes on to criticize the train whistle that interrupts his reverie.To him,the railroad symbolizes the destruction of the good old pastoral way of life.The final chapter is more paionate and urgent than its predeceors.In it,Thoreau criticizes Americans' constant rush to succeed,to acquire superfluous wealth that does nothing to augment their happine.He urges us to change our lives for the better,not by acquiring more wealth and material poeions,but instead to “sell your clothes and keep your thoughts,” and to “say what you have to say,not what you ought.” He criticizes conformity: “If a man does not keep pace with his companions,perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.Let him step to the music which he hears,however measured or far away.” By doing these things,men may find happine and self-fulfillment.Comment When I was reading Walden, I felt that I was listening to a wise man’s talking.The words and phrases about the nature especially the Walden Pond are beautiful and fascinating.The sentences are full of wisdom and philosophy.Walden emphasizes the importance of self-reliance,solitude,contemplation,and closene to nature in transcending the cra existence that is supposedly the lot of most humans.The book is neither a novel nor a true autobiography,but combines these genres with a social critique of contemporary Western culture's consumerist and materialist attitudes and its distance from and destruction of nature.That the book is not simply a criticism of society,but also an attempt to engage creatively with the better aspects of contemporary culture is suggested both by his proximity to Concord society and by his admiration for claical literature.Thoreau regarded his sojourn at Walden as a noble experiment with a threefold purpose.First,he was escaping the dehumanizing effects of the Industrial Revolution by returning to a simpler,agrarian lifestyle.Second,he was simplifying his life and reducing his expenditures,increasing the amount of leisure time in which he could work on his writings(most of A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers was written at Walden).Third,and most important,Thoreau was putting into practice the Transcendentalist belief that one can best transcend normality and experience the Ideal,or the Divine,through nature.Now ,I would like to do some reviews about several chapters of this great work.The chapter of Solitude:Thoreau rhapsodizes about the beneficial effects of living solitary and close to nature.He loves to be alone,for “I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude,” and he is never lonely as long as he is close to nature.He believes there is no great value to be had by rubbing shoulders with the ma of humanity.The chapter of Visitors:Thoreau writes about the visitors to his cabin.Among the 25 or 30 visitors is a young Canadian woodchopper,whom Thoreau idealizes as approaching the ideal man,and a runaway slave,whom Thoreau helps on his journey to freedom in Canada.The chapter of The Bean-Field:Thoreau relates his efforts to cultivate two and a half acres of beans.He plants in June and spends his summer mornings weeding the field with a hoe.He sells most of the crop,and his small profit of $8.71 covers his needs.The chapter of The Village:Thoreau visits the small town of Concord every day or two to hear the news,which he finds “as refreshing in its way as the rustle of the leaves.” Neverthele,he fondly but rather contemptuously compares Concord to a gopher colony.In late summer,he is arrested for refusing to pay federal taxes,but is released the next day.He explains that he refuses to pay taxes to a government that supports slavery.The chapter of The Ponds:In autumn,Thoreau rambles about the countryside and writes down his observations about the geography of Walden Pond and its neighbors: Flint's Pond,White Pond,and Goose Pond.Although Flint's is the largest,Thoreau's favorites are Walden and White ponds.They are lovelier than diamonds,he says.The chapter of Baker Farm:While on an afternoon ramble in the woods,Thoreau gets caught in a rainstorm and takes shelter in the dirty,dismal hut of John Field,a pennile but hard-working Irish farmhand,and his wife and children.Thoreau urges Field to live a simple but independent and fulfilling life in the woods,thereby freeing himself of employers and creditors.But the Irishman won't give up his dreams of luxury,which is the American dream.The chapter of Higher Laws:Thoreau discues whether hunting wild animals and eating meat is good.He concludes that the primitive,animal side of humans drives them to kill and eat animals,and that a person who transcends this propensity is superior to those who don't.(Thoreau eats fish.)In addition to vegetarianism,he lauds chastity,work,and teetotalism.The chapter of Brute Neighbors:Thoreau briefly discues the many wild animals that are his neighbors at Walden.A description of the nesting habits of partridges is followed by a fascinating account of a maive battle between red and black ants.Three of the combatants he takes into his cabin and examines them under a microscope as the black ant kills the two smaller red ones.Later,Thoreau takes his boat and tries to follow a teasing loon about the pond.The chapter of House-Warming:After picking November berries in the woods,Thoreau bestirs himself to add a chimney and plaster the walls of his hut in order to stave off the cold of the oncoming winter.He also lays in a good supply of firewood,and exprees affection for wood and fire.The chapter of Former Inhabitants;and Winter Visitors:Thoreau relates the stories of people who formerly lived in the vicinity of Walden Pond.Then he talks about the few visitors he receives during the winter: a farmer,a woodchopper,and a poet.The chapter of Winter Animals:Thoreau amuses himself by watching wildlife during the winter.He relates his observations of owls,hares,red squirrels,mice,and various birds as they hunt,sing,and eat the scraps and corn he put out for them.He also describes a foxhunt that paes by.The chapter of The Pond in Winter:Thoreau describes Walden Pond as it appears during the winter.He claims to have sounded its depths and located an underground outlet.Then he recounts how 100 laborers came to cut great blocks of ice from the pond,the ice to be shipped to the Carolinas.The chapter of Spring:As spring arrives,Walden and the other ponds melt with stentorian thundering and rumbling.Thoreau enjoys watching the thaw,and grows ecstatic as he witnees the green rebirth of nature.He watches the geese winging their way north,and a hawk playing by itself in the sky.As nature is reborn,the narrator implies,so is he.He departs Walden on September 8,1847.Both place and time were changed,and I dwelt nearer to those parts of the universe and to those ears in history which had most attracted me.Where I lived was as far off as many a region viewed nightly by astronomers.We are wont to iamgine rare and delectable places in some remote and more celestial corner of the system,behind the constellation of Caiopeia’s Chair,far from noise and disturbance.I discovered that my house actually had its site in such a withdrawn,but forever new and unprofaned,part of the universe.If it were worth the while to settle in those parts near to the Pieiades or the Hyades,to Aldebarab or Altair then I was really there,or at an equal remotene from the life which I had left behind,dwindled and twinkling with as fine a ray to my nearest neighbor,and to be seen only in moonle nights by him.Such was that part of creation where I had squatted;--“There was a shepherd that did live, And held his thoughts as high As were the mounts whereon his flocks Did hourly feed him by.”

This part comes from the chapter Where I lived,And what I lived for.Between the lines rich with Thoreau was enthusiastic about walden,about in the life here.Thoreau’s

description

of

the

magnificent

secenery,absolutely stunning.First,walden view of itself is wonderful and the world is rare.The other,Thoreau was to be in such beauty for a long time,no earthly bother,without worldly thoughts,he can see the deepest foundation of walden and the most true color.So he can write the most elegant text.Thoreau is a man with thoughts and ideal.He considered his life in walden is a kind of practice and experience of his outlook on life and values.Though we have seen all description of scenery,in fact there are externalization of deep thoughts and feelings.I envy Thoreau so much for he lives in such a beautiful and comfortable nature environment.He can breathe the fresh air, live with wild animal friendly;appreciate the scenery of Walden Pond etc.While in modern society, people pursuit their own interests to hunt and kill animals, cut down trees and pollute the rivers and so on.As a result, the number of wildlife is decreasing, the area of lake is shrinking, and the water is not pure any more.The environment problems such as globe warming, climate change and air and water pollution have been becoming increasingly serious.Reading this book makes me be aware of protecting the environment to realize the harmony between human and nature.Although I may not understand Thoreau's thoughts completely, I’m really benefited from reading the book, Walden.Book Information Author: H.D.Thoreau Publisher: CRW Publishing Chinese Title: 瓦尔登湖 ＩＳＢＮ: 9781904633457 Publication Date: 2004-02-01 Edition: 2 Pages: 360 Language: English