Wednesday

Then answer the following in preparation for your essay:

1.) Does Walden appeal to our "sense of rebelliousness and individualism"? Are we "inspired by his idealistic actions and principled and good-humored erudition"? Do we enjoy thinking about how we might take a more "Thoreauvian approach" to our own lives?

2.) How do modern conveniences and gadgets influence our culture? After reading Thoreau, are we now eager to give them up?

3.) Can we consider how doing and thinking for ourselves is made possible (or impeded) by modern educational and cultural institutions?

4.) To which "genre" (or genres) does Walden belong?

5.) What is Thoreau's relationship to his audience and to society as a whole? How does he situate his narrative persona? That is, what kind of person is the "I" in the text, and how do we know?

6.) How can Walden be considered as an application of Transcendental philosophy?

7.) Choose one tenet of transcendentalism and explain how Thoreau affirms, complicates, or rejects it in a chapter in Walden.

8.) Locate passages in the text that seem directly comparable to one of the other authors we've read -- especially Emerson, but possibly also others, like Franklin. How does Thoreau use one or more of the ideas of this author?

9.) Discuss the way that Walden redefines a familiar word, such as economy, travel, or shelter.

10.) Since Thoreau's text proceeds from the central metaphor of Walden Pond (in the same way that Whitman's "Song of Myself" on p. 1238 proceeds from a blade of grass), how does each chapter of Walden define some overlooked philosophical or metaphorical aspect of nature?

11.) How can Walden be considered as a response to the "runaway train of nineteenth-century growth, industrialization, mass agriculture, and capitalist values?

12.) Consider Thoreau's work as a reformist response to one of the following:

• industrial capitalism
• manifest destiny
• technological progress
• slavery

ESSAY QUESTION:

As describe in Walden what is Thoreau's assessment of American Culture (what is wrong with it)?  Using specific evidence from the text discuss and outline his argument.  Then respond to it.  Do you agree or disagree with his insights?  Discuss.

A good website to look at is Cumming Study Guides - go here

Monday

Please turn in your AP Language essays.  We need to look at the next chapter but also the following notes.   We also need to discuss ExCom topics.

Then, there is a transition to "ANIMALS".  Who are the brutes in this chapter?
There is a famous "War of the Ants" scene in this chapter.  Thoreau discusses how this war has been recorded by many writers (hyperbole) and how this war has been going on since the beginning of time.  Thoreau is unsure of what they are fighting about, but the war is compared to classical literature (bringing in the human aspect), and it is a war between Ant Races.  This is a way for Thoreau to discuss WAR in general, but it is also a subtle allusion to the Mexican-American War.

Chapter 13: House Warming
Fall.  You should be thinking about the cycle of life.  Thoreau prepares for Winter, building a chimney, plastering his cabin (self-reliance).  The Pond freezes and Thoreau is able to look through the ice itself and see the bottom of the pond (Think Pond as the Eye of the World here).

Chapter 14: Former Inhabitants and Winter Neighbors
Remember chapters contrast with the previous chapter.

"For human society, I was obliged to conjure up the former occupants of these woods" (246).

"...pranks of a demon not distinctly named in old mythology, who has acted a prominent and astounding part in our New England lief and deserves...to have his story told."

Like "Brute Neighbors" Thoreau alludes to problems in humans.  He receives few visitors in winter, but the woods are filled with ghosts of former inhabitants and he tells some of their stories.  Micah related this to Chief Seattle and how the past is always with use.

"#44: "Digging one day for fish-worms I discovered the ground-nut ..." p. 230

This is a similar sentiment to how he found arrow-heads in the earth where he was planting his crops. There is still evidence of the people before us, the natives, even after we had driven them off many, many years ago. They are still here. It can also tie back around to what Chief Seattle was saying, about how you can't get all the dead out of the hills. They will always be there."

Note, the demon he speaks of is Rum.  Think about "Civil Disobedience".  Rum was made in New England from molasses shipped from the West Indies.  This rum was then sent to West Africa to purchase slaves for the West Indies.  So even abolitionists in New England profited off the slave trade.

Many of the former inhabitants that Thoreau mentions are either former or run-away slaves, or alcoholics of some sort.  What's the connection?

Chapter 15: Winter Animals

Walking on the frozen pond.  Listening to and visiting animals (contrast with previous chapter).  There is a great story here about the Hunter who "lost his dog but found a man".  Think about Thoreau's "pure" definition of man.  The Hunter keeps asking Thoreau, while asking about his dog, "What are you doing here?"  This seems to be an important point or idea?  The hunter (remember Thoreau's discussion of hunting) finds Thoreau - the hermit, the poet...

Chapter 16: The Pond in Winter
You really need to connect this with the chapter "Ponds" or the pond in summer.  There is one of the greatest ice cutting scenes in all of literature.  Thoreau describes the ice in different colors - emerald (think the importance here), blue.  The ice is apparently transported all over.  Thoreau talks about being able to look into the pond and see his soul, and then at then end of the chapter connects (through some strange imagination) Walden pond with rivers/waters all over the world.  All people drink from his "well" and all water is connected.  He connects Ganges, Atlantis, the Persian Gulf - and the past, present and future in water.

Really consider the spiritual nature of water here.   

Chapter 17 Spring
Rebirth.

"And so the seasons went rolling on into summer, as one rambles into higher and higher grass."

Note, man-nature-God are all connected, so how do you make sense of the quote?

"I finally left Walden September 6th, 1847."  (Near the end of summer). 

Chapter 18 Conclusion - which is the conclusion of the book.  Think about how he wraps up his themes and returns to the beginning?

Higher Laws

What does Thoreau mean by "Higher Laws"?  Read the passage on page 204-2-5 (about hunting and fishing) and then in a well written essay analysis the rhetorical strategies that Thoreau uses to build his argument. 

Good luck! 

Monday

First - go here

What unifies the structure of Walden has been much debated. Two of the most frequently noted structural devices are the seasonal structure (one year from summer to spring) and a dialectical structure in which pairs of chapters present thematic counterpoints to each other (e.g. "Reading" vs. "Sounds," "Solitude" vs. "Visitors").


Bill McKibben's focus on Thoreau's practical advice for living, however, calls our attention to another structure in which the long opening chapter, "Economy," provides a diagnosis of what is wrong with American life: materialism. The body of the book then presents a cure for the disease of materialism: striving for purity and simplicity as exemplified by Thoreau's own experience and by the symbolic purity of Walden Pond. The final chapter presents Thoreau's optimistic prognosis that each individual reader has the potential to vastly improve his or her life by shifting priorities.

 CHAPTER 9
"Ponds" - Thoreau sees something spiritual in ponds and water.  Most of the chapter holds an idyllic tone and he describes the unity of nature, self, and divinity.  The pond, among other things, is called "God's Drop".   Note - "Ponds" also comes between the chapters "Village" which recounts his sojourns to the village of Concord - where he is locked up (he reports on the incessant gossip which numbs the soul, and compares going to the village to running the gauntlet), and the chapter entitled "Baker's Farm" where he talks about his neighbor John Field who works himself to exhaustion to pay for his "rustic hut" and feed his family.  The question - why this juxaposition?  

Quotes from the chapter to discuss:

"Once in a while we sat together on the pond, he at one end of the boat, and I at the other; but not many words passed between us, for he had grown deaf in his later years, but he occasionally hummed psalm, which harmonized well enough with my philosophy." (169)

"It was very queer, especially in dark nights, when your thoughts had wandered to vast and cosmogonal themes in other spheres, to feel this faint jerk, which came to interrupt your dreams and link you to Nature again.  It seemed as if I might next cast my line, upward into the air, as well as downward into this element which was scarcely more dense.  Thus I caught two fishes as it were with one hook."  (170)

Also on 170 there is a description of Walden" "It is a clear and deep green well, half a mile long and a mile and three quarters in circumference...a perennial sping in the midst of pine and oak woods."

"Lying between the earth and the heavens, it partakes of the color of both" (171)

"A lake is the landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is Earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature." (180)

This is one of the most symbol-laden chapters in Walden; it presents the pond as having human character. Thoreau introduces the symbolic mode at the end of his opening to the chapter, as he talks about fishing at night, when, he says, "I caught two fishes as it were with one hook", a literal fish and a "symbolic" fish.

 In groups on by yourself answer the following:

In what ways are the following qualities of Walden Pond symbolic of human qualities for which Thoreau thinks we should strive?

1. Its depth and the purity of its water 
2. Its colors, blue and green, and its position between land and sky 
3. Its role as "earth's eye"
4. The pond as a mirror  

THEMES: 

Self-Reliance

Materialism

Life, Consciousness and Existence

The interconnection of all things

Society and class structure

Visions of America

Technology/Modernization

How to live one’s life

Work vs. Enjoying Life