--In the winter sections of the narrative, Thoreau's focus turns to nature, both animals and the landscape. These chapters seem to hinge on the question of whether or not and to what extent, we can know or understand (plumb the depths, to use one metaphor) nature. Ultimately, how knowable does Thoreau find nature?
--At the beginning of the book, Thoreau claimed to want to brag, to speak to his neighbors about changing their way of life. But there have signs that the narrative is less focused on persuading others than in demonstrating his own insight. In the end, particularly the conclusion, do you find him more focused on personal or more public significances of his experience?
Question #1
ReplyDeleteIn his winter section about the pond, Thoreau quite literally plumbs Walden's depths. He remarks that others must not have made very sophisticated efforts, since he was able to tell quite easily when a small weight attached to his line hit bottom. He also notes that in the future, more delicate and accurate measuring instruments will make his humble method obsolete. In this way, as well as in his interactions with wildlife and interpretations of their behavior, Thoreau makes it clear that nature can very companionable and understandable.
He even explains a mystery I've wondered about for years: after a particularly bad freeze one year, I fancied the lake behind our house was singing to me. I could hear the sound from my bedroom and ran out to the lake bank. Thoreau describes the phenomenon alternately as thundering or whooping and explains the pockets in the ice that cause it.
Yet even as he seeks to understand nature's depths, he acknowledges gratitude for the sense of mystery and reverence that people have and perhaps enjoy holding onto. I think he would rather any understanding of nature occurred on a personal level of experience and companionship rather than by being taught in schools or even proven by science. Nature is very knowable, but if we aren't willing to discover that ourselves, it is better that her mysteries remain mysteries.
The chapter "Former Inhabitants; and Winter Visitors" really intrigued me. I think it is notable that the 'former inhabitants' he describes are three African Americans (Cato Ingraham, Zilpha, and Brister Freeman) and an Irishman (Hugh Quoil). Thoreau describes them at a decent length, although two other names are mentioned, they are not described at all.
ReplyDeleteAfrican Americans and the Irish were extremely marginalized at the time Thoreau was writing (and even today, in the case of African Americans). So, Thoreau makes it a point to emphasize the fact that they lived just on the outside of town, quite literally marginalized. He describes each of them without any disparaging comments (although, it seems he thinks the Irish Quoil (along with everyone else in Concord) as very unlucky.
When describing Brister Freedman, he talks of his gravestone "where he is styled "Sippio Brister,"---Scipio Africanus he had some title to be called, --"a man of color," as if he were discolored. It also told me... when he died; which has but an indirect way of informing me that he ever lived" (174). Thoreau, in a rather shockingly progressive way, asserts an objection to the phrase “a man of color.” The following sentence fits into his view of post-Civil War wage-slavery, question the nature of “living” and “freedom.”
Thoreau asserts in this passage, by emphasizing groups marginalized quite literally by his town of Concord, that there is a lasting effect of slavery, and wage-slave economics that hinders peoples ability to seek “freedom” and to “live” according to his constructions of those concepts.
Needless to say, though, Thoreau's rather confusing take on race/class/economic thoughts and discussions are rather interesting to me--mainly because they fit into a his framework that I can't quite figure out.
In my opinion Thoreau points out that while some aspects of nature can be explained and understood, there always is more to it which goes beyond human understanding. In this section, Thoreau is able to physically prove that the ponds are not bottomless and infinite but all the mysteries etc it stands for cannot be explained quite as easily.
ReplyDeleteThe pond or the water does have infinite qualities. For example, by mirroring the sky, it seems to be endless and just the mere fact that one cannot see the bottom, lets people wonder about what lies at the bottom of the pond. I think that his theory of how to find the deepest point of a body of water is an attempt to understand and to explain nature but at the same time, it shows the shortcomings of such theories. I think, this is why Thoreau then contemplates about human character and even less feasible things such as the human soul.
So I think that there is more to nature than what meets the eye and to Thoreau these aspects seem to be even more important and in this respect I agree with the first post.
-Markus