Walden Transcendentalism Analysis

Walden: a Journey Into the Mind of a Transcendentalist A new epoch is on the rise. Transcendentalist thinking built its core belief very strongly around that idea. In a nutshell, transcendentalist thinking hinged upon the way one saw the world around them and consequently formed their beliefs about it. This ideology called for individuals to worry less about what the world around them believed, but rather, to turn to their own imagination. Instead of motivating one’s actions based on the status quo, or what was generally believed and by society, this school of thinking called for individuals themselves to use their own human intuition. People were now called to differentiate what is right and wrong, what is just and what is unjust, all on …show more content…
Thoreau describes his journey into nature as an attempt to “live deliberately.” In saying this, Thoreau illustrates the notion of living for one’s own individual purpose rather than being just another cog in the machine that is society. He describes his concept of living as using nature to build on what he already understands about life. He hopes to learn something more about nature than previously possible when situated within the rest of society. At last, Thoreau finds himself alone. His intellect has been freed from the constraints of society and his reasoning ability is pure again. It is now that Thoreau hopes to learn what nature has to teach, a lesson not previously available to him. The solitude and purity involved in this moment makes Thoreau realize that all the while he was conforming to a set of artificial ideals set forth by an impure, unnatural force, he was not truly living. However, should he be able to learn a lesson from nature, a lesson that comes directly from the creating force, he can say he has truly lived a fulfilled life. Thoreau goes on to describe how should he not learn the lesson from nature, he would die and discover that he “had not