Nature writing was a growing trend of the educated in America in the 1800s. From Emerson to Whitman to Thoreau, each writer looked toward nature for both inspiration and meaning and tried to determine how nature was connected to mankind as a whole. Furthermore, due to each distinct mindsets of this era- sublime, romanticism, and transcendentalism-, each writer observed nature for different reasons and found and had different explanations for and experiences with the natural world. As stated previously, David Thoreau was one of these writers who looked toward nature, experienced it, and hoped to display his findings on it to all: “If it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world;
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It symbolized a movement from the more spiritual aspects of objects and things to a more materialistic one that centered on wealth and luxury. It was becoming the American dream to build lives of wealth so that all the new sold goods and innovations were both attainable and affordable, and they could flaunt their fortunes and status. This movement away from simplicity to a “fast”, “detailed,” more intricate way of life is exactly what Thoreau is arguing and fighting against: “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.” What does Thoreau desire for people to do in response to continues internal improvements that clutter our lives: “Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity?” Allow your life be full and free of modern burdens spawned from these so called “improvements” that truly increase the complexity and thus the stress of modern daily lives. Instead, “simplify” and diverge from a life where material items defines who you are and how you both live and perceive yourself. Revisit the time when man was both one with himself and his environment and did not allow for external …show more content…
Not only did it help increase commerce by more efficient transportation, but it also provided a quick means of traveling across the country, and thus, it provided the means of domination of the continent from coast to coast. Although this fact, the railroads also represented the luxuries and wealth of the rich and the sweat and pain of the working class Americans, from all backgrounds, that were worked to death (literally in some cases) for just the few coins out of the wealthy’s pocket. Thoreau questions this harsh reality where the “sleepers” are disregarded as less than human, less than the worth of the new innovation: “Did you ever think what those sleepers are that underlie the railroad? Each one is a man, an Irishman, or a Yankee man… 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.” The railroads literally and figuratively ran on these hard working, abused “sleepers” who labored for those who too would ride right over them. While the fortunate basked in the beauty of the new innovation, the workers were being covered in grime and dirt building the same railroad that was supposed to symbolize promise, hope, and destiny. And while the rich road these railways seeking self-enlightenment and “tinker[ed] upon their lives to
It symbolized a movement from the more spiritual aspects of objects and things to a more materialistic one that centered on wealth and luxury. It was becoming the American dream to build lives of wealth so that all the new sold goods and innovations were both attainable and affordable, and they could flaunt their fortunes and status. This movement away from simplicity to a “fast”, “detailed,” more intricate way of life is exactly what Thoreau is arguing and fighting against: “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.” What does Thoreau desire for people to do in response to continues internal improvements that clutter our lives: “Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity?” Allow your life be full and free of modern burdens spawned from these so called “improvements” that truly increase the complexity and thus the stress of modern daily lives. Instead, “simplify” and diverge from a life where material items defines who you are and how you both live and perceive yourself. Revisit the time when man was both one with himself and his environment and did not allow for external …show more content…
Not only did it help increase commerce by more efficient transportation, but it also provided a quick means of traveling across the country, and thus, it provided the means of domination of the continent from coast to coast. Although this fact, the railroads also represented the luxuries and wealth of the rich and the sweat and pain of the working class Americans, from all backgrounds, that were worked to death (literally in some cases) for just the few coins out of the wealthy’s pocket. Thoreau questions this harsh reality where the “sleepers” are disregarded as less than human, less than the worth of the new innovation: “Did you ever think what those sleepers are that underlie the railroad? Each one is a man, an Irishman, or a Yankee man… 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.” The railroads literally and figuratively ran on these hard working, abused “sleepers” who labored for those who too would ride right over them. While the fortunate basked in the beauty of the new innovation, the workers were being covered in grime and dirt building the same railroad that was supposed to symbolize promise, hope, and destiny. And while the rich road these railways seeking self-enlightenment and “tinker[ed] upon their lives to