Social Criticism in Henry David Thoreau’s Walden

Henry David Thoreau’s Walden can be understood and analyzed in many different perspectives. The artistic masterpiece may be read as an autobiography, for Thoreau tells about the two years he spent in a cabin in the woods, next to Walden Pond, or as inspirational literature, showing a model in his own age of a “pure”, simple life, or because of the detailed description of his surroundings in the wilderness, it can also be read as a nature book. All the interpretations are correct, but they all inevitably merge with an additional aspect and that is social criticism. In his book, Thoreau strictly judges the technical and spiritual production of his age, questioning the development, the views and ideologies of the time. In my essay I am focusing on the contrast between technological progress, materialism, and the spiritual freedom that Thoreau suggests in the chapter Where I Lived and What I Lived for.

Thoreau is often seen as an “anti-technology person” in a material world, while in truth, he was a man of science, a pencil manufacturer, who was in quite close relation with technology and measurements. Still, he was always skeptical towards the advance of technology, claiming that it might not be of that great value for the inner development, the advance of one’s spirit. This suggests that the direct proximity of the new technology should not be the prerequisite of one’s spiritual development:

I discovered many a site for a house not likely to be soon improved, which some might have thought too far from the village, but to my eyes the village was too far from it, (388).

With these lines, Thoreau explicitly points out, that the distance of the village - as the “home for technology” – is definitely a good attribute of the given site for him, this site being rather the centre, as his own Olympus.

Later in the same chapter, Thoreau contemplates about how the products and the interests of the age are attracting the attention of people from the practical, “simple” way of life, towards the sensation and the ever growing gossip chattering news media.

And I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, (…) -- we never need read of another, (398).

In his ironic way if putting it, Thoreau even implies that the railway is not much of a help for society, maybe even in contrast, causing deaths just with its rushing and dashing. This running is also characteristic to people, yet one should have much more time to discover her inner values instead. Thoreau goes even further here to emphasize his thoughts when he writes:

(…) and as for England, almost the last significant scrap of news from that quarter was the revolution of 1649, (398).

Another theory which Thoreau seems to disagree with is the theory of materialism. This can also be seen as being quite fused with the technological progress sometimes, for Thoreau time and again calls the attention on the fact that the spiritual development, the person itself gets more and more into the background against the material world. The materialist way - stating that the only thing existing is matter – specifically collides with Thoreau’s transcendental views. For him, the materialist values, the physical possessions of extravagance loose importance, as he stands for a simplified, a kind of minimalist way of life.

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! (396).

Right in the beginning of the chapter, we can see that Thoreau does not buy an expensive estate for himself, but instead he builds his own shack in the woods, with his own bare hands, barding it this way a much larger value.

This frame, so slightly clad, was a sort of crystallization around me, and reacted on the builder, (391).

Nevertheless, he tells about a poet he got to know, who decided to write and live withdrawn at a farm and the farmer made fun of him, because the poet was totally fascinated with the few wild apples he had and his poetry. In Thoreau’s opinion, the poet was richer than the farmer could have ever imagined, lacking the material resources, but piling up the lovely lines.

Why, the owner does not know it for many years when a poet has put his farm in rhyme, the most admirable kind of invisible fence, has fairly impounded it, milked it, skimmed it, and got all the cream, and left the farmer only the skimmed milk, (398).

This way, we get to the most important theme of Walden, the value that Thoreau suggest against all that was mentioned before, the importance of spiritual freedom. He puts the significance of spiritual freedom above all, advising that we all “as long as possible” should “live free and uncommitted.”

Thoreau’s main motive in moving to the woods lies in the dream of an existence, free from obligations, free from social boundaries, and the constant pressure that entail with that all. He is proud of his achievement, his escape from society and his new, self-reliant life.

The real attractions of the Hollowell farm, to me, were; its complete retirement, being about two miles from the village, half a mile from the nearest neighbor, and separated from the highway by a broad field (…), (389).

In his self-built cabin he can easily acquire his spiritual freedom that he wished for so much. Not depending on anyone but himself, he even claims that he is free from time now as well as from matter, that “Time is but the stream” he goes “a-fishing in“ (401). He is now “above” time, choosing if he wants to participate in its flow, or not.

Even the mere fact that he first moves into his cabin on Independence Day an implication, verifying his independence from all kinds of former obligations. On this very day he begins to examine his life, to review it and to attempt to get closer to nature, as that is, in his views, the way one can get closer to an inner balance that is to be obtained. On his way towards simplifying his needs, Thoreau refuses to be a slave of time and civilized society. Following nobody else’s model now, he seeks the wisdom and tranquility of the wilderness. And he finds it. He reaches spiritual freedom through the surrounding nature, becoming almost one with it, but certainly becoming “neighbors”.

(…) I found myself suddenly neighbor to the birds; not by having imprisoned one, but having caged myself near them, (391).

To sum up my thoughts, Thoreau is making an attempt to awaken us. Walden is basically a warning message to the people. A message to see the world changing around us, a message to remind us what is important. Society at certain points blindfolds our perspective, misguides one’s senses, having us believe that the only things that are truly of value are material, losing sight of the real values. This confusion can be avoided with simplification and a constant “examination” of one’s life. It is a sign for us all, to show that we must not get lost in the thrill of a massive technological advance, that we should all remember our main goal, our original function, to live free as a human being as we are.



Works Cited:


Thoreau, Henry David. Walden, New York: Literary Classics of the US, 1985.

Bogen, Joshua. Walden: A Serch for Truth in Nature, 2003. Web.

Bingham, Shawn Chandler. Thoreau and the sociological imagination, Rowman & Littlefield, 2008.

SparkNotes Editors. SparkNote on Walden. SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2003. Web.