Walden Literary Criticism

In one literary criticism which I read called Walden by Tiffany K. Wayne seemed like it was trying to get a point across. It seemed as if Wayne was trying to tell us that Thoreau's trip to Walden Pond was just a search to become better connected with nature for an indefinite period of time. In the criticism, she tells us Henry David Thoreau would frequently be ridiculed when he got back from the two year, two month trip; "Contrary to contemporary criticisms of Thoreau that he removed himself from society to live as a hermit during his "two years and two months" stay at the pond, Thoreau had no desire to live completely apart from human society" (Wayne). I thought it seemed pretty cool of Tiffany K. Wayne to tell us about how Henry David Thoreau was the first to tell us about measuring the depth of Walden Pond, "Walden Pond itself served as the best example of Henry David Thoreau's dual perspective of nature as having both physical and spiritual aspects, but also of having both knowable and unknown qualities. The pond itself is the symbolic center of the text, a place that Thoreau had known as a child and thus was, in a sense, part of his own self that he had come to learn about in new ways. The pond symbolized for Thoreau the human spirit or soul. Local legend was that the pond was bottomless, but Thoreau had set out first to measure the pond's depth—which he found to be more than 100 feet—and then to see that not as a limitation but as representative of holding specific identifiable truths that just have not yet been fully comprehended or mined" (Wayne). It was pretty cool to read about how a pond which Thoreau moved to and lived by could represent so much. Then having this person, Thoreau, telling us all of this information about this pond, and to find out that this pond had never been measured for its depth. Then this person who has been telling us all of the information, to be the one who measured and find that a small pond was not quite so small after all. This means almost there were parts of his soul to be discovered. This tends to make me think about my own soul and what I mean to the world and what I an do, and how I am connected to nature. Sometimes it seems hard to be connected to nature and I now understand why Henry David Thoreau wanted to get away from civilization and get in touch with nature and his self. It would be pretty cool to live by yourself for a couple of years by a pond and just have that time to think about everything. I would think it would be relaxing. According to Wayne, Thoreau only documented four seasons while he lived at Walden Pond in his story, Walden. Maybe the reason Thoreau only documented one half of his stay was because he was too busy enjoying himself and relaxing, being away form everybody else.




Wayne, Tiffany K. "Walden." Encyclopedia of Transcendentalism. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. accessed November 16, 2010.