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Jacob Riley
Markita Proctor
English 101 Dual Credit EKU
April/ 21/ 2015
Walden and Todays Audience:
What Someone in Todays Society Would Gain From Henry Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau was someone who saw major faults in the way people lived in his
home of Concord. He saw, out of his home town, a machine made of people that was fueled by
greed and kept together by everyone having one close minded view of life. Thoreau had had
enough of the way people had let innovation and materialism cloud their judgement, so in March
1845, according to the back of my copy of Walden, he left his home for two years to live in the
woods to conduct an experiment. According to Barrons Book Notes, Thoreau was twenty
eight whenever he decided to go and live on a plot of land that Ralph Waldo Emerson owned in
the woods next to Walden Pond just outside of the town. On that plot he built a cabin by the pond
where he documented his thoughts and experiences while living in the woods and outside of
society (Corrente). It is from his experiences at the pond, as well as his thoughts after the two
year experiment, that Thoreau wrote the book Walden. In his book, Thoreau uses his
experiments results to sum up that people were corrupted by greed and by luxury, and had
forgotten what gives life meaning. Thoreaus ideas on how people can truly live life without
being greedy and having a false idea of what gives peoples lives meaning, shown in Walden, can
be applied to todays society since people today can be classified with the same sort of issues of

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greed and not knowing what is true and what is fake. By characterizing his society of Concord,
Thoreau shows just how greedy and blind people are in his home town.
Through his descriptions of conversations with people at the pond and examples in his
home town, Thoreau characterizes people of his time as materialistic and as blind to how life
could be on an individual scale. In Walden, Thoreau says that in Concord, Every New
Englander might easily raise his own bread-stuffs . . . and not depend on distant and fluctuating
markets for them. Yet so far are we from simplicity . . . that, in Concord, fresh and sweet meal is
rarely sold. . . (51). He uses this example to say that people are so greedy and lazy, and that they
will not take the time to raise their own food. They would rather pay money to have food when
they could raise it themselves with time and effort. The societal ways of economy and markets
has made people forget how simple life could be if people put in the effort to fend for themselves
rather than depend on others. Along with being lazy, Thoreau characterizes people as being blind
in their own logic. They would rather follow a crowd rather than thinking for themselves. David
Cooper is a chairman for a psychological institute (Dr. David C. Cooper). In his criticism of
Walden, he talks about the topic of how people thought without consulting their own logic
according to Thoreau. In his literary criticism, Cooper says that Thoreau uses the idea of local
legends, such as Walden Pond being bottomless in Concord, to make people in society look
gullible. Cooper even points out how people, according to Thoreau, try to use false scientific
evidence to prove that the pond actually is bottomless (160). I agree with Cooper that Thoreau
uses this urban legend as an example of people being gullible and not consulting their own logic.
It is through the idea of gossip in society that makes people believe these sorts of things rather
than people thinking for themselves whether it is true or not. Finally, in the chapter Baker
Farm, Thoreau has a conversation with the inhabitant of a farm he had thought about living in

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when wanting to come live in the woods. John Field, the owner of the farm, talked to Thoreau
about how he worked hard to put food on his table. John ate things like butter and fresh meats.
Thoreau seemed to think this type of food unnecessary for life because before he said this,
Thoreau talked about how he did not eat these luxury like foods, and talks about how he ate
simply instead of spending a lot of money. Therefore, he didnt have to work hard to earn his
food (162). Essentially, Thoreau makes the point that people work harder than they have to due
to the fact that they have want for unnecessary things like pleasurable amounts of food. He is
saying that people have no need to have such busy lives earning money just for pleasure. These
characteristics may have been said about Concord in the past, but Thoreaus characteristics can
still tie into todays society.
The people in todays society share the same sort of flaws Thoreau had with people of
Concord in his time. People nowadays are just as lazy and simple minded as they were in
Thoreaus time. People today often enjoy food that they dont prepare themselves just as people
in Concord did. Just like people buying pre-made bread from a market in Concord, many people
in modern society go and buy things like frozen pizza and already butchered meat rather than
raise and grow wheat to make pizza crust or hunt for their own meat. People today dont know
the true value of food, so they go off and put a price tag on it to make a selfish profit rather than
seeing foods true value. Much like Thoreaus society, people could spend less money and live a
lot simpler if they put in the effort to make their own food. Also, people are just as gullible today
as they were in Thoreaus time when it comes to following a community guided belief. Much
like the bottomless pond, people raise an entire community behind ridiculous matters. People
today raise rumors and gossip about celebrities in things like tabloids. People today follow these
beliefs without question, and even follow false evidence of something like a photograph of a

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celebrity in a party. People today follow these beliefs rather than truly question rather they are
real or not, and they base their story on evidence that is not credible. They all just follow a group
ideology and say that its true. Finally, people still work unnecessarily just for luxuries. People
work extra hours in their jobs to get things like a new pair of shoes or a new video game. These
things are optional and unnecessary yet people still buy them and work for them. People who
complain today about having to work so hard may not have a legitimate reason to complain at all
if they work for something not needed for life. Much like John Field, people could work less if
they lived more simple lives. Through this and the other examples, it can be seen that people in
society really have not changed from Thoreaus time. People could live like Thoreau, and have a
clear head about what they think and have a simple life.
While some might argue that Thoreaus idea of living cannot become a reality due to
modernization, Thoreaus lessons from living in a cabin can still be followed symbolically
through modern means. For example, throughout Waldens chapter Economy Thoreau talks
about statistics for things like money spent building a house and buying food and that he only
used what he deemed absolutely necessary (38 and 47). While not all people can go off into the
woods and only hunt, they can still take on Thoreaus idea of only having necessities and not
obsessing over luxury. People today can do things like budget their grocery purchases and only
buy what they need for their daily meals. They can learn not to depend so much on luxuries to
survive. Also, people can consult their own minds and not follow others blindly even if they
dont physically escape society. People today merely need to consult themselves and not fall into
the crowd with ideas that may or may not be true. They could do their own thinking or research
and find out whether or not the sources that they learn from are truly credible or just ridiculous.
While it may be true that people cannot copy Thoreau exactly, people can still gain knowledge

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and ideas from Walden on how to be less materialistic by budgeting or less blind in the world by
having their own views. What is important is that people learn from Thoreau in Walden rather
than copy him.
People in Thoreaus time may have had different ways of showing their greed or
following others out of ignorance, but Thoreaus ideology can still be followed by todays people
through things like budgeting and opening their minds to their own thoughts. In the end, Walden
is a documentary of a mans thoughts who went to live in the woods, but the ideas that he gained
from the woods were the most important part.

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Works Cited
Cooper, David. Thoreaus Walden, n.a. ebscohost. Web. 19 April. 2015
"Dr. David C. Cooper." Dr. David C. Cooper. Web. 11 May 2015.
http://www.streamingfaith.com/prayer/authors/david-cooper
"Henry David Thoreau's Walden (Barron's Book Notes)- Study Notes." Powells,com. Web. 11
May 2015.
Thoreau, Henry. Walden and Civil Disobedience. New York: New American Library, 1999.
Print.