This document provides a biography and overview of the works of American author Henry David Thoreau. It notes that he was born in 1817 in Massachusetts and graduated from Harvard in 1837. Thoreau is known for moving into a small cabin at Walden Pond in 1845, where he lived a self-sufficient lifestyle for over two years. While at Walden Pond, he wrote his most famous work Walden, published in 1854, which detailed his experiences and promoted living simply and self-sufficiently in nature. The document provides synopses of the chapters of Walden and discusses its major themes of transcendentalism, individualism, and self-reliance.

1. AMERICAN
LITERATURE

2. HENRY
DAVID
THOREAU
BIOGRAPHY WORK

3. Birth
• July 12, 1817
• Concord,
Massachusetts
• Second son and third
child
• His father was a
pencil manufacturer

5. Education
• Harvard College in
1833, and
• Graduated in 1837
• Tradition rule; to wear
black coat to chapel.
• Rebelled by wearing
a green jacket.

6. Thoreau’s Early Life
• Opened a school,
with his brother John
• Quit teaching
because he refused
to whip children
• Lectures were
uninspiring

7. Thoreau’s Experiment
• At 28, a failure
• A woman turned
down his marriage
proposal
• He wanted to
experiment his life
with living a simple
and self-sufficient life

8. • March 1845, began to
work on a cabin at
Walden Pond.
• Surrounded by the
beauty of nature

11. • He moved in July and
stayed for two years
and two months.

12. • He grew twelve
bushels of beans
and eighteen
bushels of
potatoes his first
year and sold
most of it.
• His whole income
from his farm (as
he called it) was
$23.44.

13. • He was not a
hermit. He had
people over and did
go into town to eat
with friends.
• And it was rumored
that he sometimes
stole pies from his
neighbors’ window
sills.
I can smell
pies here!!!

17. Thoreau’s Later Life
• In 1846, arrested for an
act of civil disobedience,
for not paying the taxes
during Mexican War
• He spent a night in jail
and wrote “Resistance
to Civil Government”
• This essay inspired
Gandhi and Martin
Luther King, Jr.

19. • Published Walden on
August 9, 1856
• In 1860, contracted
the cold that led to his
fatal illness, and died
in Concord on May 6,
1862
• In 1906, 20 volumes
of Thoreau’s writings
were published,
including 14 volumes
of his journal

20. Graveyard

21. Thoreau’s Works (Selected)
• A Week on the Concord and Merrimack
Rivers, 1849
• Resistance to Civil Government / Civil
Disobedience / On the Duty of Civil
Disobedience, 1849
• Walden or Life in the Woods, 1854
• Excursions, 1863
• The Maine Woods, 1864

22. • Slavery in Massachusetts, 1854
• A Plea for Captain John Brown, 1859
• Cape Cod, 1865
• A Yankee in Canada, 1866
• Complete Works, 1929 (5 vols.)
• Collected Poems, 1943

23. Walden
• Background
Information
• Synopsis
(contents)
• Themes

24. Walden
• The book details Thoreau's sojourn in a cabin near
Walden Pond, amidst woodland owned by his friend
and mentor Emerson, near Concord, Massachusetts.
• He did not intend to live as a hermit.
• He received visitors and returned their visits.
• To gain a more objective understanding of life.
• Thoreau's goals; Simple living and self-sufficiency.
• Inspired by philosophy of transcendentalist.
• The key ideas of the American Romantic Period.
• As Thoreau made clear in his book, his cabin was not
in wilderness but at the edge of town, not far from his
family home.

25. Synopsis (content)
• Economy
– The first chapter and also the longest.
– Thoreau begins by outlining his project: a two-year
and two-month stay at a crude cabin in the woods
near Walden Pond.
– To illustrate a simplified lifestyle base to
necessities.
– He records his expenditures and earnings.
– Understanding of "economy,"
– For a home and freedom, he spends a mere
$28.13.

26. • Where I Lived, and What I Lived For
– Thoreau describes his cabin's location.
– Then he explains that he took up his abode at
Walden Woods.
– "live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of
life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach,
and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not
lived."
• Reading
– Thoreau provides discourse on the benefits of
reading classical literature (Greek or Latin)
– Bemoans the lack of sophistication in the popularity
of popular literature in Concord.
– He yearns for a utopian time when each New
England will support "wise men".

27. • Sounds
– Opens the chapter by warning against relying too
much on literature as a means of transcendence.
– Instead, one should experience life for oneself.
– He describes his cabin's beautiful natural
surroundings and his casual housekeeping habits.
– He criticize the train whistle that interrupts his
reverie.
– To him, the railroad symbolizes the destruction of
the good old pastoral way of life.
– Description of the sounds audible from his cabin:
the church bells ringing, carriages rattling and
rumbling, cows lowing, whip-poor-wills singing,
owls hooting, frogs croaking, and cockerels
crowing.

28. • Solitude
– Thoreau rhapsodizes about the beneficial effects of
living solitary and close to nature.
– "I never found the companion that was so
companionable as solitude."
– No value to be had by rubbing shoulders with the
mass of humanity.
• Visitors
– Thoreau writes about the visitors to his cabin.
– Among the 25 or 30 visitors is a young French-
Canadian woodchopper.
– Helps Alec Therien – runaway slave’s journey to
freedom in Canada.

29. • The Bean-Field
– Thoreau relates his efforts to cultivate two and a
half acres of beans.
– He plants in June and spends his summer
mornings weeding the field with a hoe.
– He sells most of the crop, and his small profit of
$8.71 covers his needs.
• The Village
– Thoreau visits the small town of Concord every day
or two.
– In late summer he is arrested for refusing to pay
federal taxes, but is released the next day.
– He explains that he refuses to pay taxes to a
government that supports slavery.

30. • Ponds
– Having returned to the woods, he resumed his
solitary, tranquil and "refreshed" life.
– collect ripe huckleberries and blueberries.
– fishing
– boat drifting
– playing his flute
– Then he describes the other bodies of water in the
Concord area: Flint's Pond, Goose Pond, White
Pond, and Fair-Haven Bay.

31. • Baker Farm
– John Field, a penniless but hard-working Irish
farmhand, and his wife and children.
– He urges Field to live a simple but independent.
– Irishman won't give up his American dream of
luxury.
• Higher Laws
– Thoreau discusses whether hunting wild animals
and eating meat is good.
– Transcends human superior against animals.
(Thoreau eats fish.)
– In addition to vegetarianism, he lauds chastity.

32. • Brute Neighbors
– Wild animals as his neighbors at Walden.
– A description of the nesting habits of partridges.
– A massive battle between red and black ants.
– Examines the combaters under a microscope as
the black ant kills the two smaller red ones.
• House-Warming
– Pick November berries in the woods
– Add a chimney.
– Plaster the walls of his hut keep away from cold.
– He also lays in a good supply of firewood.
– Expresses affection for wood and fire.

33. • Former Inhabitants; and Winter Visitors
– Thoreau relates the stories of people who formerly
lived in the vicinity of Walden Pond.
– Then he talks about the few visitors he receives
during the winter: a farmer, a woodchopper, and a
poet (Ellery Channing).
• Winter Animals
– Amuses himself by watching wildlife in the winter.
– He relates his observations of owls, hares, red
squirrels, mice, and various birds as they hunt,
sing, and eat the scraps and corn he put out for
them.
– He also describes a fox hunt that passes by.

34. • Pond in Winter
– A long winter; disturbed spiritual life.
– "I awoke with the impression that some question
had been put to me, which I had been endeavoring
in vain to answer in my sleep, as what — how —
when — where?"
– That morning he looked out of his window and
rediscovered the answer to all of his worries and
questions.
– He obeyed nature's unspoken command.
– Saw a hundred Irish laborers and Yankee foremen
cutting out the Walden ice for sale.
– "pure Walden water [was] mingled with the sacred
water of the Ganges."

35. • Spring
– Walden as spring arrives.
– He witnesses the green rebirth of nature.
– He watches the geese winging their way north, and
a hawk playing by itself in the sky.
– As nature is reborn, the narrator implies, so is he.
– He departs Walden on September 8, 1847.
• Conclusion
– More passionate and urgent than its predecessors.
– In it, he criticizes conformity: "If a man does not
keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is
because he hears a different drummer. Let him
step to the music which he hears, however
measured or far away."

36. Themes
Walden emphasizes the importance
of self-reliance, solitude, contemplation,
and closeness to nature in transcending
the "desperate" existence that, he
argues, is the lot of most humans.

37. Ideas of Transcendentalist
Individualism
Self-Reliance
Quest for truth
Must rely on intuition
Dislike of materialism
Strong connection to Nature

38. Quotes from Transcendentalists
• "Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me
truth." -H.D. Thoreau
• "Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead
where there is no path and leave a trail." -Emerson
• "Men for the sake of getting a living forget to live."
-Margaret Fuller
• “Unless your heart, your soul, and your whole being
are behind every decision you make, the words from
your mouth will be empty, and each action will be
meaningless. Truth and confidence are the roots of
happiness.” -Emerson

39. THANK YOU