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Literary Analysis: Thoreau
Read the excerpt below from Walden, by Henry David Thoreau. Consider how the author's use of language, including figurative language, reveals tone in the text.
Write a well-developed essay that analyzes the attitude of the narrator in the passage. Include specific details from the text to support your analysis.
from Walden
by Henry David Thoreau
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to “glorify God and enjoy him forever.”
Still we live meanly, like ants; though the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men; like pygmies we fight with cranes; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion. Our life is like a German Confederacy, made up of petty states, with its boundary forever fluctuating, so that even a German cannot tell you how it is bounded at any moment. The nation itself, with all its so-called internal improvements, which, by the way are all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million households in the land; and the only cure for it, as for them, is in a rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose. It lives too fast. Men think that it is essential that the Nation have commerce, and export ice, and talk through a telegraph, and ride thirty miles an hour, without a doubt, whether they do or not; but whether we should live like baboons or like men, is a little uncertain. If we do not get out sleepers, and forge rails, and devote days and nights to the work, but go to tinkering upon our lives to improve them, who will build railroads? And if railroads are not built, how shall we get to heaven in season? But if we stay at home and mind our business, who will want railroads? 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 Irishman, 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. And when they run over a man that is walking in his sleep, a supernumerary sleeper in the wrong position, and wake him up, they suddenly stop the cars, and make a hue and cry about it, as if this were an exception. I am glad to know that it takes a gang of men for every five miles to keep the sleepers down and level in their beds as it is, for this is a sign that they may sometime get up again.

Thoreau's Walden reflects a contemplative and critical tone towards society's direction. Through figurative language and purposeful phrasing, Thoreau articulates his desire for a life of simplicity and purpose, denouncing societal complexities and superficialities.

In Thoreau's Walden, the narrator reveals a distinctively introspective and contemplative tone. Thoreau utilizes various forms of figurative language to convey this tone, such as his metaphoric designation of non-essential facts of life as 'overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture'. His call to 'Simplify, simplify' suggests a desire for a more essential, deliberate mode of living, rejecting societal complexities. Thoreau's tone is critical and rebellious, as he criticizes society's pace, which 'lives too fast', and the lack of purpose cultivated in a life cluttered with superficiality.

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Thoreau's language and use of figurative expressions reveal a contemplative and critical attitude in the passage from Walden. He emphasizes the value of simplicity and critiques society's fast-paced lifestyle and lack of reflection on the real essence of life.

In the passage from

Walden

by Henry David Thoreau, the narrator's attitude is mainly contemplative and critical. Thoreau's language and use of figurative expressions such as 'living is so dear', 'cut a broad swath', and 'life is frittered away by detail' depict his deep contemplation about the essence of life and his criticism of the common, unreflective way of living.

The reiteration of the word ‘simplify’ reinforces Thoreau's criticism towards a complex, detail-focussed lifestyle. The narrator emphasizes the value of leading a simpler, more thoughtful life. He uses the metaphor of the railroad and ‘sleepers’ beneath them to critically evaluate society's tendency to blindly adhere to fast-paced development, overworking without reflecting on the purpose or meaning of life.

The tone conveyed through Thoreau's use of language in the text is a combination of introspection, admonition, and a slight cynicism towards society's values. In conclusion, Thoreau's descriptive and figurative language in this excerpt from Walden underscores the narrator's critical and contemplative attitude towards life and society's norms.

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