Walden

I asked ChatGPT why this paragraph is significant and why it may be misunderstood. ChatGPT said that Thoreau is doing more than just describing the scenery. He instead goes deeper by explaining that nature is complete and self-sufficient, and he subtly criticizes human interference. He says that nature is timeless, and ultimately morally and spiritually far superior to human adaptation. ChatGPT explores the idea of why this paragraph may be misunderstood by explaining that some may read this paragraph as simply a calm description, and not as a philosophical argument that nature is complete and should be left alone. Additionally, some readers may interpret this passage with an anti-human tone, but Thoreau is more condemning the careless domination of nature.

I plugged this paragraph into my Copilot AI interface. I found the paragraph itself very interesting due to the way Thoreau depicts both a mans changing interest and altering priorities. My Ai asked me a few questions on the paragraph itself; the  most thoughtful question in my opinion was: how does the shift from hunter/fisher to poet/naturalist function as a model of moral or intellectual maturation? I found this a very insightful question to ask, as for me the metaphorical use of these external aspirations in someone’s life, can work to symbolize internal growth and change. Personally, I believe what Thoreau is trying to say is that as a person morally and intellectually matures, they move away from the purely physical things that fulfill them, to the things in life that mentally satiate a person: like books, poetry, and beauty within nature. I was not that surprised with AI’s capabilities in creating thought-provoking questions, however I do believe that the use of Ai to answer questions and form opinions in replacement of analyzing a text yourself is not the best use of a chatbot. I find myself rarely using AI to analyze texts, but I found these questions help in forming ideas surrounding Thoreau’s text.

I felt like this paragraph would be a good one to ask questions on because it seems like there is a lot of symbolism being used, and I want to know the meaning behind it. I asked a chatbot to answer some questions I have about this paragraph, and it gave me some good and interesting responses. It described the pond as symbolic of many different things, like a mirror of the soul, purity, and nature as self-cleansing. In this paragraph, Thoreau is trying to make the point that nature represents a higher, purer reality than human civilization. It says that Thoreau uses the phrase “sky water” to make the point that the water represents a connection. It reflects the sky so perfectly that it makes it seem partly made of the sky. I thought all of these responses were very interesting and gave me another perspective of what the meaning behind this paragraph is.

[ I fear that it may enjoy a certain health of its own; that we may be well, yet not pure. The other day I picked up the lower jaw of a hog, with white and sound teeth and tusks, which suggested that there was an animal health and vigor distinct from the spiritual. This creature succeeded by other means than temperance and purity.]

A lot of this chapter seems to revolve around the idea of humans searching for purity.  They do good deeds and have a set of morals they hold themselves to, usually due to religion according to Thoreau.  I feel like this line sticks out because it implies that animals have their own form of purity.  The hog has no religion, no known guiding moral compass, yet it appears to be clean.  It almost casts doubt on humanity’s method of being such, with the first sentence quoted above almost seeming to imply that humans have reached no greater purity than animals.

Thanks for calling attention to this passage, @fbgreen! Laura Dassow Walls, Thoreau’s most recent biographer, writes that Thoreau’s description of the Irish farm laborer John Field and his family “has cost him many readers.” She sees Thoreau’s persona in this passage as that of a “pedantic meddler who hectors the family with a pile of proverbs, then turns away in disgust when the poor Irish immigrants gape at him uncomprehending instead of magically mutating on the spot into ‘philosophers’ like himself. Many have found Thoreau’s ethnic slurs here unforgiveable” (Henry David Thoreau: A Life [Univ. of Chicago Press, 2017], p. 352).

I think it’s important to see this passage in historical context—although I don’t think that context makes the ethnic slurs forgiveable. (Should ethnic slurs ever be forgiveable? Not in my book.)

The 1840s brought a large wave of Irish immigrants to the U.S., and many immigrants, including those living in shanties near Walden Pond, worked as laborers on farms and the railway. In an 1843 letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson from Staten Island, where Thoreau briefly lived, serving as a tutor to one of Emerson’s nephews, Thoreau writes, “I am glad the [C]oncord farmers have plowed well this year, it promises that something will be done these summers. But I am suspicous of the Brittoner who advertises so many cords of good oak chestnut and maple wood for sale–. . . . The sturdy Irish arms that do the work are of more worth than oak or maple. Methinks I could look with equanimity upon a long street of Irish cabins and pigs and children revelling in the genial Concord dirt, and I should still find my Walden wood and Fair Haven in their tanned and happy faces.–” (Correspondence, Volume 1: 1843–1848 [Princeton Univ. Press, 2013], p. 246).

Here, Thoreau is clearly on the side of the hard-working Irish laborers, who are more valuable, he asserts, than the wealth they produce for their farmer-businessmen employers. The implication that these immigrant laborers are being exploited by their employers is consistent with Thoreau’s observation that John Field is paid a mere $10 per acre for his work as a share-cropping farm laborer. It’s also consistent with what Thoreau says in paragraph 17 of Where I Lived, and What I Lived For” about exploited Irish (as well as “Yankee”) railway workers: “We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us. Did you ever think what those sleepers are that underlie the railroad? Each one is a man, an Irish-man, or a Yankee man. The rails are laid on them, and they are covered with sand, and the cars run smoothly over them. They are sound sleepers, I assure you. And every few years a new lot is laid down and run over; so that, if some have the pleasure of riding on a rail, others have the misfortune to be ridden upon.”

Thoreau is writing at the same moment in history when Karl Marx is formulating his ideas about class struggle under capitalism. Marx conceptualizes farm laborers, railway workers, and factory “operatives” as a distinct class with shared interests opposed to those of an exploiting class that owns what Marx calls the “means of production”—for example, land and factories. His solution to this exploitation is to call for the exploited laboring class to rise up against their exploiters and seize the means of production so that they can collectively take back control of their lives and destinies.

Thoreau takes a different approach. He doesn’t use the term “capitalism” or the language of class. Instead, he calls on individuals to awake, open their eyes to the fact they they’re being “ridden upon,” and choose a different life for themselves.

What Marx’s thinking and Thoreau’s have in common, though, is the idea that if you’re being exploited, you shouldn’t resign yourself to this exploitation as something that’s inevitable. You have agency, both are saying: either through collective (Marx) or individual (Thoreau) action.

It’s unfortunate that in this passage of Walden, Thoreau makes his point in such a condescending way.

For anyone in the class who’s interested in the intersection of immigration history and labor history (with special attention to the Irish and the railways), I’ve put a document in our shared group space here in the Readers’ Thoreau as well as in our Google Drive folder. You may also want to look at “Labor in the Industrial Era” on the U.S. Department of Labor website.

Typically, I agree with Thoreau and his opinion on things but this paragraph stood out to me. In earlier chapters he wrote that he would not advise anyone to live the way he does, as they need to figure out how to live for themselves, but in this paragraph he is instructing the Field family on how to live. In my opinion, it is extremely out of touch and privileged for Thoreau to be telling them what to do, especially when he is in a very different situation than the family is. I understand he is trying to offer them advice, but the fact that the Field family are Irish immigrants (which Thoreau has expressed his distaste for in multiple chapters) makes me read the paragraph in more of a condescending tone.

I fed this paragraph to ChatGPT and asked the following questions: “What is Thoreau trying to say here? How does it contribute to the overall objective of the novel?”  I received a long-winded response, but in summary, ChatGPT responded to these questions with: “In this passage, Thoreau argues that true civilization and personal growth require simplifying our physical lives — even our diet — so that our daily actions reflect higher moral and spiritual ideals, a central goal of Walden’s call to live deliberately and authentically.”

While it is not the most extensive summary, I feel as though it covered what I asked nicely and is similar to my own interpretations of the paragraph.  However, ChatGPT is able to go much deeper and into more detail than I am when working with this paragraph.  Specifically, ChatGPT broke down the meaning of the chapter title “Higher Laws” and connected it to this paragraph.  It made a chart with the following information:
“2. Why This Appears in “Higher Laws”
The chapter explores a central tension in human nature:

Lower Nature: Appetite, Instinct, Desire, Animal
Higher Nature: Conscience, Reason, Self-control, Spiritual being

Thoreau admits humans contain both sides. The goal is not denial of the body, but disciplining it so higher values can lead.
Food becomes a concrete example of this struggle.”
This is a very interesting insight that I don’t think I could have brought into the reading of this paragraph on my own.
I didn’t notice ChatGPT get any details of the text wrong; however, it would be easier to spot if I were more familiar with the text or if I asked more plot-based questions.  Overall, I think ChatGPT did a good job, but it evidently goes beyond human capabilities.

I think Thoreaus point of no one expressing their true opinion holds true especially today. I have noticed an increasing trend of people lacking vulnerability. People are so afraid of being “wrong” or having social repercussions that they are so quick to agree with the dominant narrative even if they dont agree with it. I think this is extremely detrimental because discussion is the only way change can occur and how things get done.

[I came to love my rows, my beans, though so many more than I wanted. They attached me to the earth, and so I got strength like Antæus.]

I think this paragraph is significant because Thoreau is revealing that the bean field isn’t about farming necessarily, but about connection. He is explaining that nature and working on the land give him strength, unlike society. The bean field symbolizes simplicity, strength, and living intentionally which are common themes throughout Walden.

Mid way through this paragraph Thoreau begins to describe the ways in which he has assisted travelers and towns-people in finding their way home in the dark and muggy night. Thoreau’s depiction of guiding lost persons back to their homes or wherever they might need to go works as analogy to the ways in which he hopes that his ideologies, and maybe even his book Walden, will be used as a sort of map or guide that can assist people in discovering purpose/reaching enlightenment. Though I thought some aspects of this chapter were contradictory to Thoreau’s overall message, as he does travel back and forth from the village to his cabin, in some ways defeating the purpose of his “total isolation”, I believe that in the end his motivations for returning to the village every once in a while can be traced back to this analogy: Guiding people in the dark. Darkness in any case is often used to symbolize clouding of vision, a sense of being lost, or the inability for people to see clearly, by Thoreau explicating earlier in the paragraph the ways in which his connection to nature guides him throughout whatever journey he partakes in, Thoreau then illustrates the idea that it is critical we connect to nature in order to clear our vision and become enlightened, and that Thoreau himself can usher in this sense of environmental focus. There are multiple other sentences within this paragraph that depict how nature can help guide us in the dark, but I also think it would be ignorant to not entertain the idea that Thoreau himself is proclaiming that his views and ideas are valuable in the ways they are rooted in connection to nature.