Irony is a funny thing. Walden Pond, chosen for its suclusion by Henry David Thoreau, is now a tourist attraction."There were nearly 74,000 visitors in the month of June" says The New York Times. People are coming from all over to see the iconic symbol of American thought that is Henry David Thoreau. This makes me wonder, would Thoreau like this pilgrimage? When I read Walden, I got the impression that HDT wanted us to live our own lives, not his. People that go to Walden Pond are searching for something. They want what HDT found. However, Thoreau says himself: "Here is life, an experiment to a great extent untried by me; but it does not avail me that they have tried it" (6).
We must take a step back, and realize that HDT is now our senior. We now must break away from Thoreau's experience. We each need to become Thoreaus and Emersons and find our own Walden Pond. After all, Thoreau even said: "The whole ground of human life seems to some to have been gone over by their predecessors" (6). We need to find our own path.
3 comments:
I completely agree with you Chip, we all should find our own Walden pond. You were dead on about Thoreau wanting us to find our own path, if anything I would say that is what his book is about. I feel also though that Thoreau would be almost angered for that very reason. I mean like you said, he chose that spot over any other for its seclusion, yet now 75,000 people have recently visited there. I feel that he would be mad and frustrated that the one place which allowed him to find himself is now destroyed in his mind.
I agree too. It almost seems to me like these people who are going to Walden pond expecting to find what Thoreau found are cheating their way towards finding a path in life. Thoreau would want these 75000 people to find their own secluded pond and find their own path, not copy his. I am disappointed that a place of such significance to HDT because of its location has been turned into exactly what Thoreau wanted to avoid. But then again, I find it a little humorous that people won't find what they are looking for at Walden because of the masses of people who are also there looking for it. If they really wanted the same experience Thoreau had, they should find their own woods and go through their own process of finding a path.
I definately understand where you three are coming from, but in a way wouldn't this make HDT happy that he is studied? Maybe those 75,000 people were trying to get a feel of what he went through in order to understand his ideas better. I could understand him being dissapointed that they didn't find their own Walden, but at least they know about HDT. I would be glad that that many people knew about me and/or studied me. Also, although those 75,000 didn't do what HDT said, if that many went to Walden, maybe another 75,000 went to go find their own Walden instead. And that would surely make HDT pleased.
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