Walden Comparison Essay

(The Comparison of Walden by Henry David Thoreau’s View of Nature and Today’s World’s View) Nature is a great aspect in itself, and many people today are having a hard time fully appreciating it because of the immense about of civilization. Many people, from different areas in the world, look at nature very differently. For example, a person raised amongst skyscrapers would view a simple creek down the mountain quite breathtaking. When a hunter, though he would not look past the beauty, but he would slightly notice the creek, reason being that he is surrounded by this very nature most of his day. “Mankind’s love for nature is perhaps one of the greatest mysteries of life, one that even evolutionary biologists are hard-pressed to explain.” (Pulkit Mathur). There are many ways in which to observe nature, Henry David Thoreau, in from Walden, looks at nature in many different ways, some the same others different as one would today. In the beginning of the excerpt, Thoreau offers the idea of searching very long and hard for which land to purchase and make a house upon. This task, tying in with nature, is something which is regularly done in today’s society as well, arguably even more so. In Walden he says, “I have thus surveyed the country on every side within a dozen …show more content…
Comical because Americans think almost completely opposite of that logic, they are very greedy. Thoreau says boldly, “Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dished, five; and reduce other things in proportion.” (page 383) This point that Thoreau makes is possibly the most opposite point to what society has to say today. “America is complex – and far, far more so that we often like to accept.” (Charles C. W. Cooke) To point it out, today’s views of simplifying is very different than that of