--As we've come to the 'synthesis' or city/country section of the course, a number of the issues that interest me about this text reflect on things we've already studied, so...--Compare Coverdale's attitude toward the transformative possibilities of country living and agrarian labor with that of Thoreau in Walden.
--In much of the city writing we examined, the notion of the city as a place of watching, spying or being a voyeur is explored. How does this novel thematize or explore this in the utopian community? What is Coverdale's explanation, justification or qualification of his own tendency to pry into the private matters of others?
Compare Coverdale's attitude toward the transformative possibilities of country living and agrarian labor with that of Thoreau in Walden.
ReplyDeleteCoverdale’s excitement at having left society behind well matches Thoreau’s. On his first night at Blithedale while the women are making preparations for dinner, Coverdale comments, “We had left the rusty iron frame-work of society behind us,” a statement that reminded me of Thoreau’s comparison of the town to a mill. Going back to a more primitive, natural life, filled with honest, simple work, and plenty of leisure is ideal because it allows a break from society’s dehumanizing, controlling mechanization.
Yet there’s a strange moment when Coverdale wonders what he’s doing, leaving behind a society where he is comfortable for one that is unknown. He even remarks that he wishes the establishment of a utopian community at Blithedale could have been put off a hundred years so he wouldn’t have to be part of it. If it’s personally so bothersome to affect change, one wonders why he doesn’t stay back. Just what possible transformation does he see that is worthwhile enough for him to leave the comforts of home?
When pressed by a concerned Zenobia not to give up his work as a poet because of the new lifestyle, he tells her, “I hope, on the contrary, now, to produce something that shall really deserve to be called poetry—true strong, natural, and sweet, as is the life which we are going to lead…” and goes on talking about the music of nature and the vibrancy that closeness to it can bring to his work. For Coverdale, like Thoreau, I think the utopian back-to-nature lifestyle is exciting primarily as a writer’s experiment. Both have their social concerns, but Coverdale is not drawn to philanthropy and Thoreau’s very obscurity places Walden not in the genre of guidebook but of literary masterpiece. With both the fictional poet and the real author, we get a definite sense that the new, exciting, and at the same time very primal experience they are trying to achieve will make their writing real in a way that life in the city never could.
--Kaitlyn Dryer
Compare Coverdale's attitude toward the transformative possibilities of country living and agrarian labor with that of Thoreau in Walden.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with Kaitlyn a lot on this post considering both Coverdale and Thoreau decided to leave the city in search of something natural and peaceful in the country and also as authors it seemed to be a good experiment to try. Both being writers, a fictional poet and a real author both Coverdale and Thoreau find the country to be an interesting place to write about because it is natural and honest. As for like in the city it is much more fast paced with very different lifestyles that need so much more than that of the country. Coverdale once in the story acutally contemplates leaving his "comfortable" society to go somewhere completely new and different. I feel that he does this change because it may actually provide writing material, as it did with Thoreau. I also believe that both of these writers traded in the comforts of a city to the discomfort of a country, simply to become uncomfortable. Many people thrive off of change and who are these people to feel any different? I think the idea of doing something completely opposite of their normal lives intrigued them. By escaping to the country it gave them insight into a whole new world that they were interested in and as a writer new material sometimes come from your surroundings, so in order for them to get new material for their writing they decided to try a different place.
Mr. Coverdale constantly conjures up the idea of Paradise and “the better life” early in the narrative as reasons for traveling to the country. In contrast, Thoreau claims in Walden that an agrarian lifestyle teaches the ‘savages’ in the city, who do not have to produce their own food, clothing, etc., to be a well-rounded, civilized individual.
ReplyDeleteThoreau claims that his, “Purpose in going to Walden Pond was not to live cheaply nor to live dearly there, but to transact some private business with the fewest obstacles” (17). Of course, Thoreau does not just mean to move to the country to become a better businessman, but also because, “It would be some advantage to live a primitive and frontier life, though in the midst of an outward civilization, if only to learn what are the gross necessaries of life and what methods have been taken to obtain them” (11). Thoreau believes that getting away from civilization cleanses the soul, in a way, and takes one out of the everyday hustle of city life and into a ‘live by one’s means’ type of lifestyle. Learning to support oneself, while also learning to produce an income from goods, becomes Thoreau’s most basic reason for going to Walden Pond.
Coverdale, with his suggestion of a return to Paradise, finds the country as a place where all men and women are equal, working towards a common goal. This is comforting to him, as he explains that the men he travels to Blithedale with have, “divorced ourselves from Pride, and wre striving to supply its place with familiar love.” The country allows a Renaissance of thought and feeling for Coverdale, where all men are equal and the stress of city life disappears. A new life can begin, deeply ingrained in Christian doctrine. But, shortly after arriving, he gets sick and must stay in bed wondering, “What, in the name of common-sense, had I to do with any better society than I had always lived in! It had satisfied me well enough...Was it better to hoe, to mow, to toil and moil amidst the accumulations of a barn-yard?” (40). This occurs before he actually begins the work, but Coverdale has his doubts about this type of lifestyle, something not seen in Walden.
Overall, both texts explore the idea that an agrarian lifestyle will improve one’s livelihood while also learning the basic means of living. These basic means create a more civilized person than one who purchases their means in the city and do not support their own lives.