George Washington to New Hampshire, 29 December 1777 (Detail, GLC03706) Visions of the American Environment: Unit: Thoreau's Walden Aim: To understand what type of person Thoreau seeks to liberate through reading Walden by Brendan Smyth Academy of American Studies High School "Economy." From Walden and Other Writings. Ed. Joseph Krutch. New York: Bantam Henry David Thoreau (b.1817) was a New England writer and natural historian. He was educated at Harvard and was active in intellectual circles. He knew such notable Americans such as Emerson and Whitman. Thoreau belonged to a school of American thought known as Transcendentalism. Transcendentalism sought to reform American society and the human condition. Many would say this movement was similar to the European Enlightenment where scholars sought to improve upon the failing human condition. Many Transcendentalists took action in anti-slavery movements and womens's suffrage movements. Thoreau contributed to the Transcendental experience in his masterpiece, Walden. Walden is an account of his experiences living in a homemade house outside of Walden Pond, near Concord, Massachusetts. Walden; or, Life in the Woods described a two-year period in Thoreau's life from March 1845 to September 1847. From the Fourth of July, the author retired from the town to live alone at Walden Pond. Famous sections involve Thoreau's visits with a Canadian woodcutter and with an Irish family, a trip to Concord, and a description of his bean field. Although Walden has become an inspiration to all those who want to escape civilization, Thoreau himself took with him seed, lumber, clothes, nails, and other devices to survive - and his friends helped him to put the roof on his hut. Thoreau, a true Transcendentalist, sought to identify how humans could improve their inner and outer conditions. In the following document Thoreau sought to explain what type of person is in need of improving their condition. "I sometimes wonder that we can be so frivolous, I may almost say, as to attend to the gross but somewhat foreign form of servitude called Negro Slavery, there are so many keen and subtle masters that enslave both North and South. It is hard to have a Southern overseer; it is worse to have a Northern one; but worst of all when you are the slave-driver of yourself. Talk of a divinity in man! Look at the teamster on the highway, wending to market by day or night; does any divinity stir within him? His highest duty to fodder and water his horses! What is his destiny to him compared with the shipping interests? Does not he drive for Squire Make-a-stir? How godlike, how immortal, is he? See how he cowers and sneaks, how vaguely all the day he fears, not being immortal nor divine, but the slave and prisoner of his own opinion of himself, a fame won by his own deeds. Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate. Self-emancipation even in the West Indian provinces of the fancy and imagination—what Wilberforce (13) is there to bring that about? Think, also, of the ladies of the land weaving toilet cushions against the last day, not to betray too green an interest in their fates! As if you could kill time without injuring eternity" ____ 1. From your understanding of American history, what time period or decade would you place this passage? 2. From the first sentence how can we support the idea that Thoreau is an American Transcendentalist? 3. How can people be seen a slave-drivers of themselves? Provide an example of a self -slave-driving person that Thoureau describes as well as one contemporary example from your own understanding of this concept. 4. Why does Thoreau suggest that being a slave-driver of oneself is worse off that an African slave? Do you agree of disagree with Thoreau's notion? Explain your viewpoint. 5. What is meant by the phrase, "…but the slave and prisoner of his own opinion of himself?" 6. Describe the type of person that would be contrary to a 'slave-driver of oneself?'