Thoreau Essays (1256 words) - Literature, American Literature

Thoreau In Henry David Thoreau's infamous novel ?Walden?, we are shown endless paradoxes that stem from the author's deep and insightful views into nature's universal connections with the human race. Thoreau makes himself a quest of finding the meaning to our existence by investigating nature from different perspectives that our preoccupied society constantly overlooks. Two of these perspectives are of viewing nature from a mountaintop or panoramic view and the other being from our own earthly foundations. ?At other times watching from an observatory of some cliff or tree, to telegraph any new arrival; or waiting at evening on the hill-tops for the sky to fall, that I might catch something, though never caught much, and that, mannawise, would dissolve again in the sun? (Thoreau 336). In this passage, Thoreau tells us that he is searching for something but he is not sure of what it is exactly. He states that he has taken refuge plenty of times at sites that are at high altitudes to try to see more clearly so that the answers of life can become more apparent. He says he waits for the sky to fall, which of course it can't, but this tells me that he is looking for the unexpected or what hasn't been seen yet. The word ?mannawise? is a Thoreau ?original? word. I know, by my own knowledge, that ?manna? is another word or prefix for ?earth?, so when he says that the ?mannawise, would dissolve again in the sun?, I believe he is saying that his search has hit another rut without answers and so the sun sets and so does the earth's responses of wisdom. ?Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and tradition, and delusion, and appearance, that alluvion which covers the globe, through Paris and London, through New York and Boston and Concord, through church and state, through poetry and philosophy and religion, till we come to a hard bottom and rocks in place, which we can call reality, and say, This is, and no mistake; and then begin (Thoreau 400). This is one of Thoreau's strongest statements using the perspective of burrowing down to our own roots to find the buried treasures of life. He tells us to forget everything we have learned and start all over with a fresh and clean state of mind. Once we do this we can experience true ?reality? and not what society has handed us to believe in. To work our way down through all we have been taught by man and to find the real answers in ourselves and nature and if we do this, only then shall we live and be. ?To my imagination it retained throughout the day more or less of this auroral character, reminding me of a certain house on a mountain which I had visited the year before. This was an airy and unplastered cabin, fit to entertain a travelling god, and where a goddess might trail her garments. The winds which passed over my dwelling were such as sweep over the ridges of mountains, bearing the broken strains, or celestial parts only, of terrestrial music? ?Olympus is but the outside of the earth every where? (Thoreau 390) In this passage, Thoreau gives us another panoramic view of being on a mountaintop where a house is, with a sight so beautiful and magical, that its only comparison would be of Olympus, home of the Greek gods. He gives us a past description of what he remembers about a rundown cabin and even though it was a decaying site, its towering position made it god worthy. Thoreau starts by stating that his present house looked like an ?auroral character?, setting an analogy of the sun shining all around his residence reminding him of the ?Olympus? site. This godlike place on the mountain has nature's own music playing by the ways of the wind passing through the holes and hollows of earth's landscapes. He uses the metaphor of Greek Mythology to give us a grandeur view of the earth so that we may see clearly and truly to find our real selves and world. ?Though the view from my