Transcendentalism
Henry David Thoreau
Walden
Chapter 1 – Economy
1. Describe where Thoreau live. For how long did he live there? How did he get by?
2. Why did Thoreau write Walden? Why does he think everyone should write a
sincere account of his or her own life?
3. Explicate in your own words each line of the paragraph that starts, “The mass of
men lead lives of quiet desperation.” What is the “confirmed desperation” Why is
there no play in the games and amusement of mankind?
4. What is the chief end of man to which Thoreau alludes? What are the prejudices
that we harbor that it is never too late to give up? What shouldn’t we trust, and
why?
5. What is Thoreau’s opinion of older people, their advice, and their wisdom? What
has he learned from his Mentors?
6. What is Thoreau’s complaint about humans’ predecessors? Why do they irk him?
Give an example of one thing a predecessor has done that vexes Thoreau?
7. Give an example of “the tedium and ennui that are as old as Adam which presume
to have exhausted the variety and the joys of life?
8. What is Thoreau’s purpose in going to Walden Pond? When he says that he went
to transact some private business does he mean commercial or personal interests?
9. What occurs to Thoreau when he sees a snake run into the water? What does he
mean when he says that “men remain in their present low and primitive
condition”? What is the “ethereal life”?
10. What is the message of the song that Thoreau sings while he is working?
11. Just as soon as Thoreau takes possession of Collins’s shanty, he takes it down.
Why? Why, then, did he purchase it?
12. Classical literature, such as Homer’s Iliad about the Trojan War, is studied as the
repository of truths that have enabled Western Civilization to progress towards its
proclaimed greatness. What, then, do you think Thoreau’s point is in saying that
the least scraps of paper which lay on the ground after he had been working
afforded him as much entertainment and served the same purpose as the Iliad?
13. How much did it cost Thoreau to build his house?
Transcendentalism
Henry David Thoreau
14. How does the student make his leisure fruitful Is the life of the student to play and
study, according to Thoreau?
15. Why was Thoreau astonished to find upon completion of his studies at Harvard
that he had studied navigation?
16. Define economy and political economy using the dictionary.
17. What is the difference between political economy, which the student is taught at
college, and the economy of living, which isn’t (and which is the economy
referred to in the title to the first chapter of Thoreau’s work)?
18. What is the universal law that no man can ever outwit? Explain the law using the
preceding paragraph’s explanation of the cost of traveling to Fitchburg as your
example.
19. Explain Thoreau’s point about “This spending of the best part of one’s life
earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable
part of it” What does he mean that the Englishman should have gone up garret at
once?
20. Why does Thoreau think he did as well as any farmer in Concord that year? Is he
referring to the amount of money he earned or to something else he held as
important?