Nonconformism And Transcendentalism In Walden By Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau is a transcendentalist author who wrote the novel Walden, which is a novel explaining to the American public about when he isolated himself at Walden pond from the rest of the American society. His writings at Walden pond fits the goals of the transcendentalists mindsets because much like Ralph Waldo Emerson and other transcendentalist during his time Thoreau believes in nonconformity. Meaning that Thoreau does not agree with going along with the flaws of the society in America, because it will overwhelm the American public as a whole. Thoreau’s perspective as a transcendentalist is to separate one self and move to nature to get away from gossip to live Deliberately with awareness and to live life at its lowest terms. Through …show more content…
Thoreau’s motive of describing his perspective of simplicity is to get his audience to understand how they should apply simplicity to their daily lives. Thoreau believes that we must reduce what we do in our daily lives and keep our lives simple. For example, from his chapter “Where I Lived” Thoreau states that, “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.” (Thoreau 906) Thoreau is explaining to his audience that we should apply simplicity to our daily lives, because with simplicity there is less stressful things that are weighing you down. Thoreau wants his audience to know that we should not take pride in things that are not important, instead we must live deliberately with awareness so that we stop over doing things. Thoreau also uses simplicity to explain to his audience to stay away from gossip that society brings out to the public. Thoreau uses the post office in his town as a symbol of gossip, because all bad news comes from the post office. For example, Thoreau states, “To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea.” (Thoreau 908) Thoreau is explaining to his audience that he can do without the post office, because the post office is nothing but society’s gossip. Thoreau believes that the post office is society because the post office is the nation’s mailing system and we should not be interacting with society’s gossip. Another way Thoreau uses simplicity to describe his perspective as a transcendentalist is he does not believe in tradition. Thoreau believes that in order for us to live out our dreams we have to forget about tradition and lay