Walden: An Inspiring Breakthrough in
2014
the Social Construction of Nature
By Emily Leight
Geography 30 Essay #2
12/15/2014
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Emily Leight
Geog 30 – Essay 2
MLA Format
15 December 2014
Walden: An Inspiring Breakthrough in the Social Construction of Nature
Henry David Thoreau, in his book Walden, spends two years and two months alone
in a cabin he built in the woods by Walden Pond, near Concord Massachusetts. Throughout
his solitary journey, Thoreau analyses innumerable aspects of life and human society. Being
separated from the conventional ways of civilization, he is given a broader perspective on
the orthodox ways of life and is able to analyze them outside of the constraints of socially
constructed views. In doing so, Thoreau documents a shift in the views of wilderness,
allowing his readers to appreciate the escape to nature he experienced. Henry David
Thoreau’s documentation of his reclusive experience in nature gave him much existential
wisdom and allowed a breakthrough from the socially constructed view that the society of
humans is outside the society of nature, facilitating a shift in his and his reader’s
perspectives on nature and wilderness that will always be appreciated.
Thoreau’s intention with this experiment was never to come out a changed man, but
to analyze the changes and the spiritual journey he experienced throughout the entire
voyage. He is aware of the materialistic human society that he has always been a part of
and wants to start focusing more on his soul and the inner workings of his body, rather
than pleasing his bodily shell. He cuts out all superfluous things in life and focuses on the
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necessities, planting and harvesting his own crops for food, building his own cabin and
chimney, and focusing entirely on his mental and spiritual health.
While it is admirable to live entirely on just the necessities, Thoreau fails to
recognize that not everyone wants to do this. He uses only what he needs for his entire
time on the pond, and rejects the appreciation of anything else. However, what about the
people who are piano prodigies or love to paint? It is a stretch to assert everyone should
reject materialistic things as far as artistic activities of enjoyment.
While this rejection is unrealistic, Thoreau’s assertions on monetary wealth are
more easily agreed with. Just as we have the phrase “keeping up with the Joneses,” Thoreau
states “most men appear never to have considered what a house is, and are actually though
needlessly poor all their lives because they think that they must have such a one as their
neighbors have” (Thoreau 58). This sentence epitomizes Thoreau’s strengths in identifying
the materialistic obsession Americans have, and even so long ago! Imagine how
disappointed he would be with our present day societal values. He constantly emphasizes
the pleasure he feels from his detachment with the material world to appreciate the natural
world.
There exists an idea of nature being a socially constructed phenomenon that greatly
differs from the true sense of the natural world. By going out to Walden Pond in isolation
for two years of his life, Thoreau was in a position to first-handedly question this social
construction. The term “nature” in itself is a tricky one to use, because often times there is
an immediate separation created between what is the natural world and what is the human
world. As it is put in “Environment and Society,” the natural world is “everything that exists
that is not a product of human activity” though it is almost “impossible to divvy up the
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entire world into discrete natural and human components” (Robbins, Hintz, and Moore
121).
Unfortunately, through most of modern history, nature and the term “wilderness”
have been thought of as areas of the world outside of everyday human life. This has been
theorized as one of the key reasons Thoreau was motivated to escape into nature for two
whole years of his life at Walden Pond. As William Cronon argues in his paper “The Trouble
with Wilderness”, wilderness is “profoundly a human creation” (Cronon 28). The
perception humans have of nature and the idea of the wilderness experience are a product
of our human civilization itself. We see nature as what we want it to act as: a pure, serene,
“pristine sanctuary” (Cronon 28) where we can go to escape the contaminated world in
which we live. The idea that nature and human society are two different realms has been
generated through this social construction of nature that human civilization has conjured
up the past 300 or so years.
In a way, Thoreau’s entire purpose for escaping to Walden Pond can be seen as an
experiment to question the idea that human life and nature can be one. In the chapter titled
“Solitude”, Thoreau states how on one “delicious evening” he “[goes] and [comes] with a
strange liberty in Nature, a part of herself” (Thoreau 202). Here, it is evident that his
isolation and quality time spent in nature has allowed him to feel like one with her. As he
walks along the pond and hears the noises of the night, “nothing special [attracts him]” and
“all the elements are unusually congenial to [him]” (Thoreau 202), telling the reader that
the noises of nature no longer surprise him or draw his attention because he feels like he is
a cohesive part of them, and a part of nature.
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Although he does have visitors, Thoreau expresses many times how he feels
completely in utter solitude in nature. The social construction of nature holds that the
society of man and the society of nature are two separate entities, but Thoreau felt himself
a part of both, if not more so a part of the society of nature. One night as he was pondering
his solitude, he was “suddenly sensible of such sweet and beneficent society in Nature”
(Thoreau 206). Rather than being upset with his lack of human interactions, he was
completely content having “an infinite and unaccountable friendliness all at one like an
atmosphere sustaining [him]” and making “the fancied advantages of human neighborhood
insignificant” (Thoreau 206). Human society is constructed to take pleasure in being with
neighbors and having relationships, but Thoreau challenges this with his complete
satisfaction of finding his only friend in nature.
While this narrative told by Henry David Thoreau could be seen as challenging the
concept of the social construction of nature, it has also been regarded as a work that
allowed the creation of such ideas. Prior to the late 18th century, “the connotations [with
the word wilderness] were anything but positive, and the emotion was most likely to feel in
its presence was ‘bewilderment’ – or terror” (Cronon 30), suggesting that not too long
before Thoreau’s time, large natural landscapes were places of danger rather than delight.
There was a shift that was seen with industrialization from perceptions of wilderness being
characterized from those of fear to those of appreciation and longings to escape to nature.
As a well-known Romantic transcendentalist of the time, Thoreau had a lot of impact on
how his book Walden was received by human society.
Merely the fact that Thoreau was able to happily survive out in the wilderness
entirely self-dependent for so long is one reason why the shift in the social views of nature
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changed after the release of Walden. Furthermore, Thoreau enjoyed his time in nature and
documented how much he grew spiritually and philosophically, showing that wilderness
wasn’t something to be feared, but to be enjoyed. The story is filled with metaphorically
stunning quotes and life changing analyses of the natural world, words that made the
wilderness almost sacred. All of Thoreau’s inspirational musings made his readers want to
experience what he experienced. He says “Rise free from care before the dawn, and seek
adventures” (Thoreau 324) and “Truly, we are deep thinkers, we are ambitious spirits”
(Thoreau 512) along with countless other encouraging instructions and observations that
make his readers want to run into the woods and never return, facilitating the shift in the
view of wilderness.
This work written by Henry David Thoreau was something new for its time, as the
movement towards the appreciation of wilderness was just getting started. After spending
two years and two months essentially alone in the woods, Thoreau came out a wiser man
with many epiphanies and life lessons that he couldn’t have gained otherwise. After being
so discontented with human society for most of his life, Thoreau was refreshed when he
was able to detach from the materialistic and self-centered lifestyles he observed in the
past. In doing this, he was able to break free from the socially constructed views of nature
instilled in his mind that man was outside of the natural world. By setting himself as an
example of being one with nature, the transcendental leader facilitated the change in the
perception of wilderness in American’s minds. Points about appreciation of nature and
human tendencies made in Walden still hold true today, and will teach valuable lessons for
years to come.
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Works Cited
Cronon, William. "The Trouble with Wilderness: Or, Getting Back to the Wrong
Nature." Environmental History 1.1 (1996): 7. Web.
Robbins, Paul, John Hintz, and Sarah A. Moore. Environment and Society: A Critical
Introduction. 2nd ed. Chichester, West Sussex, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. Print.
Thoreau, Henry David, and J. Lyndon Shanley. Walden. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1971.
Print.
Cover page photo:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Thoreaus_quote_near_his_cabin_
site,_Walden_Pond.jpg