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... s? Explore your own world, the streams where you live, your own intellect, and mind the seas and inlets of the moral mind. He writes: It is easier to sail many thousand miles through cold and storm and cannibals, in government ship, with five hundred men and boys to assist one, than it is to explore the private sea, the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean of one's being alone.
If you want to travel, explore yourself. Thoreau left the woods because he learned all he could there; his feet had worn a path from the door to the pond- side. As he writes: If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. Speak not so others can understand.
Instead, speak without bounds. Do not go for the lowest common denominator, but reach for the highest. Why should man be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? 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. The truth alone wears well.
Be where you are. Live your life: "It looks poorest when you " re richest. " Hours can be thrilling wherever you are. Do not search after new things. Truth means more than love, than money, than fame. The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake.
There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star. Oh listen to Thoreau! The final chapter summarizes much of what Walden says. It releases the reader, full of ideas. It is stunningly idealistic with its faith in the highest of humanity.
It espouses the belief that if you expect the best from life, it will come. The most relevant part of this final chapter is the section that tells us to search inside ourselves. Wilderness may have mostly disappeared in this world. However, even if all the forests are explored, each person has the world inside him or her. On a literary note, one of the most interesting portions of the book to analyze is the section where Thoreau discusses the letters within words.
He examines how words are composed, reflecting their meaning. This is close reading at its extreme, the heart of New Criticism. Thoreau often discusses how one should read, but this is the first time that he pays equal attention to the words he uses as he pays to the pond or the birds chattering outside his window. Speaking of birds, Thoreau loves onomatopoeia. After metaphorical writing, this is his most used literary technique. He scatters woo's and chip, chip, chip's throughout Walden.
This technique, like lush visual descriptions, allows the reader to see what Thoreau sees and hear what he hears, thus placing the reader within the world of Walden. However, Thoreau again repeats his plea that his readers not follow in his footsteps. He fears already that people are going to go to Walden and attempt to live like he did. The book is simply an inspiration, meant to show people what is possible, to inspire them to find their own paths, and to walk to a different drummer, rather than all being alike. The final sentences illuminate the theme of light present throughout the book. The inner light is like the inner awareness that Thoreau is attempting to reveal to the reader. "The sun is but a morning star. " This world of nature is but a means of inspiration for us to know ourselves.
Throughout his book, Thoreau requests and requires self-knowledge, and the path that he took in Walden is just one way to reach that end. When the ice-cutters open the lake, they cause the ice to break up earlier than it would otherwise. The sun warms the ice. It also reflects off the bottom of the lake, warming the bottom of the ice and causing it to fill with bubbles and holes like a honeycomb. One reason Thoreau came to the woods was to watch this happen, to see spring arriving. The sand makes all sorts of patterns as the ice melts, the sap flows in the trees, and the buds begin to sprout.
The birds come out chirping, the squirrel chatters, and the geese honk overhead. Spring, when the leaves unfurl, is the time of newness and life. We need wilderness. We need to have fields and forests around villages. We need to see nature so full of life that there can be sacrifice and death. The trees put forth leaves and nature goes on.
After two years, Thoreau's sojourn in the woods ended on September 6, 1847. What does this teach us? Explore your own world, the streams where you live, your own intellect, and mind the seas and inlets of the moral mind. He writes: It is easier to sail many thousand miles through cold and storm and cannibals, in government ship, with five hundred men and boys to assist one, than it is to explore the private sea, the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean of one's being alone.
If you want to travel, explore yourself. Thoreau left the woods because he learned all he could there; his feet had worn a path from the door to the pond- side. As he writes: If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
Speak not so others can understand. Instead, speak without bounds. Do not go for the lowest common denominator, but reach for the highest. Why should man be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? 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. The truth alone wears well. Be where you are. Live your life: "It looks poorest when you " re richest. " Hours can be thrilling wherever you are.
Do not search after new things. Truth means more than love, than money, than fame. The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn.
The sun is but a morning star. Oh listen to Thoreau! The final chapter summarizes much of what Walden says. It releases the reader, full of ideas. It is stunningly idealistic with its faith in the highest of humanity. It espouses the belief that if you expect the best from life, it will come.
The most relevant part of this final chapter is the section that tells us to search inside ourselves. Wilderness may have mostly disappeared in this world. However, even if all the forests are explored, each person has the world inside him or her. On a literary note, one of the most interesting portions of the book to analyze is the section where Thoreau discusses the letters within words.
He examines how words are composed, reflecting their meaning. This is close reading at its extreme, the heart of New Criticism. Thoreau often discusses how one should read, but this is the first time that he pays equal attention to the words he uses as he pays to the pond or the birds chattering outside his window. Speaking of birds, Thoreau loves onomatopoeia.
After metaphorical writing, this is his most used literary technique. He scatters woo's and chip, chip, chip's throughout Walden. This technique, like lush visual descriptions, allows the reader to see what Thoreau sees and hear what he hears, thus placing the reader within the world of Walden. However, Thoreau again repeats his plea that his readers not follow in his footsteps. He fears already that people are going to go to Walden and attempt to live like he did.
The book is simply an inspiration, meant to show people what is possible, to inspire them to find their own paths, and to walk to a different drummer, rather than all being alike. The final sentences illuminate the theme of light present throughout the book. The inner light is like the inner awareness that Thoreau is attempting to reveal to the reader. "The sun is but a morning star. " This world of nature is but a means of inspiration for us to know ourselves. Throughout his book, Thoreau requests and requires self-knowledge, and the path that he took in Walden is just one way to reach that end. Bibliography:
Free research essays on topics related to: pacific ocean, thousand miles, final chapter, lowest common denominator, literary technique
Research essay sample on Lowest Common Denominator Literary Technique
