A secondary ideal evident throughout the essay, Economy, was learning and doing for oneself. On multiple occasions, Thoreau mentions that one must rely on something other than the older generations to teach them and tell them what they must do. Instead, he points towards the idea that one must find out and live one’s life in a way that they are…[Read more]

“House-Warming” reminds the reader of a very important caveat to Thoreau’s overall prescription of a slower and more thoughtful life spent in nature: one must devote oneself to some hard work in order to enjoy a fuller sort of peace. Henry David Thoreau marks himself as starkly disapproving of the working man’s toilsome devotion to his wage. H…[Read more]

The labor of one’s hands is more satisfying than the transactional, robotic, futile work done in society. While Thoreau’s unfinished homely house hardly offers protection from the elements, he believes it is “fit to entertain a traveling god.” He describes it as “saturated with dew” and an “airy look” to say that it fits within “the poem of cr…[Read more]

The essay, Economy, focuses on the Thoreau’s opinions of working men as slaves to their own household. He seems to be focusing heavily on working men within their own households, and instead of mentioning that men are slaves to their wife’s, he identifies it as being a slave to their own households and having to deal with both hard working lab…[Read more]

a. While I agree with many of the ideas that Thoreau presents in this essay, I also think that in a lot of ways he takes his ideas too far. It is very true that people are enslaved to the idea that they need to own things, and it causes them to work their lives away. While I would agree that it’s bad that people can get so obsessed with the m…[Read more]

There is a certain pressure upon each human in this world that we must grow up to be led into the workforce, where we become part of the machine. Some of us may be lucky enough to reach retirement and enjoy the final 10 to 20 years of life stuck at home, as our old age keeps us from exploring the beauty of nature that awaits outside and will be…[Read more]

I have read Walden before and I thought he was romantic and idealistic at best. Reading it again, I’ve found myself unsettled by his religious yet un-Christian tone. “I have been as sincere a worshipper of Aurora as the Greeks”, he writes in paragraph 14 and later says “For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether…[Read more]

Solitude is an extremely prominent theme throughout Walden’s essays. This essay, named “Solitude” is no exception. Thoreau walks us through his routine of solitude, walking and listening to the sounds of nature while calming himself to reach this state of mind that he calls solitude. The irony of this essay is that the solitude prepares him for t…[Read more]

“Economy”
Henry David Thoreau’s criticism of the social prioritization of fashion above the content of one’s character is surely a fittingly biting remark against the most superficial of today’s dressers, but it unfairly chastises the vast majority of the population who simply enjoy feeling appropriately dressed for the occasion of daily life.…[Read more]

HI everyone,

Here are my thoughts about “Economy,” specifically paragraph 23.