[Eileen Reinhardt]

In paragraph 4 of “Solitude,” Thoreau claims he is favored by the gods, and goes on to say some condescending words about the general population, indicating that he is indeed a misanthrope, or at least thinks he is better than everyone else.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Eileen Reinhardt]

In paragraph 16 of “Where I Lived and What I Lived For,” Thoreau states that he went to the woods to live deliberately, Spartan-like, and to see if he could live plainly. This could be seen as being blind to his own privilege because he can choose to live that way, but other people in the world have to live like that because they have no other choice.

[Eileen Reinhardt]

In the first paragraph of “The Village,” Thoreau does not make it a secret that he goes back to the village often, so maybe he is not as hypocritical about his way of life as Schulz claims.

[Eileen Reinhardt]

Schulz’s three most damning claims about Thoreau are his narcissism, hypocrisy, and childish nature.

In terms of narcissism, Schulz argues that Thoreau was self-obsessed, claiming he was “more favored by the gods” than other men. He thought his way of living was the best way, and if others could not live like him, they were stupid or wrong. He never wanted to help others, and when he tried philanthropic actions, he said “it does not agree with my constitution.” Both Walls and Purdy bring up many examples that disprove this notion of narcissism. Purdy brings up his interest in the Native Americans of his area, and how he sought out “conversation and even friendship with Native Americans, studying the Wampanoag language on his own while at Harvard, and filling more than 3,000 notebook pages with material from these investigations.” Walls talks about his involvement with the Concord’s Farmer Club that formed with the mission of deciding what farmers should do in the wake of new technologies and economies destroying their way of life. Thoreau often gave them advice, and they listened to and respected him. This shows him as a man that cared about others instead of the narcissistic man Schulz portrays.

The hypocrisy that Schulz points out revolves around the location of Walden Pond and Thoreau’s activities there. This is important and a key point to Schulz’s overall criticism of Thoreau because the whole premise of “Walden” revolved around his longing to distance himself from society and live simply, yet Walden Pond was close to Concord (about a twenty minute walk according to Schulz), and his family visited him often. Walls responds to this criticism by asserting the belief that Thoreau’s closeness to civilization actually helped him decide the essentials in life. A railroad (which he both berated and admired in his works-another example of hypocrisy) brought a collection of people near his dwelling, and by interacting with them and the people of his town, Thoreau could confront the technology of his time, and it gave him a chance to study how different people lived and acted. Walls argues that this allowed Thoreau to untangle all the thoughts in his head and come up with his own interpretation on how to live.

Schulz’s view of Thoreau’s childish nature stems from his dislike of government as well as his teenager-like way of thinking. By this she means the “rebellion against societal norms” as well as ignoring elders and presenting adulthood as full of autonomy without responsibility to family, which kids love to think is the case. Purdy counters this argument, particularly the last part, by saying that Thoreau was still an “economic member of the household” during his stay at Walden. Even though he wanted to live simply and was experimenting and writing, he still understood his duty to his family, showing that he knew he had responsibilities and acted accordingly. Walls comments that he disliked the government and rebelled against societal norms like paying taxes because he saw the government as a machine that was “designed to make others a necessary agent of injustice to another,” and he simply could not support that. His actions were not childish; they stemmed from a belief in social justice, and the actions he took were not childlike, but brave and planned out.

When reading Thoreau, many of my classmates have pointed out that we should be forgiving, listen to what Thoreau says himself, and figure out when the ideas from the articles and video come into play, which I agree with. I think it is also important, especially for someone who read Thoreau in high school (and disliked him), to approach him with an open mind and think about Thoreau as a whole, rather than just the parts seen in “Walden.” He could be self-obsessed at times, but his involvement with farmers shows how he cared about the lives of his fellow neighbors. The fact that he, a white man during the 1800s, was interested in Native American culture and the hardships they faced and was an ally to the abolitionist movement does not correlate to a man that was self-obsessed or unwilling to help others. These are some of the things to keep in mind as we study Thoreau throughout the semester.

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