Walden Book Summary - Walden Book explained in key points

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Walden summary

Name: Walden
Rating: 4.6 (190 reviews)
Author: Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau

Life in the Woods

4.6 (190 ratings)

20 mins

Topics

Eastern Philosophy Personality

Table of Contents

Walden
Summary of 9 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 9

What’s in it for me? Venture into the woods to learn about simple living.

Do you often feel sapped of energy from the hustle and bustle of life in the city? Are you sometimes frustrated by all the noise, traffic and rushed people that make up your surroundings? Henry David Thoreau had certainly reached this point – and this was back in 1845!

But unlike most people, Thoreau did something radical about it: he moved to the woods and settled into a home on the edge of a lake called Walden Pond.

These blinks explore how he managed to sustain himself at Walden Pond and what he learned about human nature through living simply in natural surroundings. You’ll get an insight into both the practical and philosophical sides of Thoreau’s two-year experience of a simple life and learn the finer things that a forest sojourn can open you up to.

You’ll also discover

why devoting yourself to your work can make you a fool;
how so-called “savages” are actually very advanced when it comes to housing; and
which one of Thoreau’s visitors had a habit of crawling up his leg.

Thoreau was concerned that modern life was offering little opportunity for gaining real wisdom and knowledge.

It was in the spring of 1845 that Henry David Thoreau made his way to the wooded shore of Walden Pond, a lake in Concord, Massachusetts. The worries of the world weighed heavily upon him; he found modern life to be profoundly disturbing. To Thoreau, the approaching new era bled wisdom and freedom from his society. People were crushed under the servitude of work and had little chance of enjoying what life had to offer.

As he famously put it, “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” They toiled and labored to make money to buy houses that were surplus to requirements and to fill them with useless knick-knacks.

Thoreau reacted forcefully. To him, such an existence was “a fool’s life.” It was a life devoid of meaning and wisdom, replaced with exertion and drudgery.

Part of the problem, as he saw it, was that people who worked so hard simply didn’t have the time or energy to read. More people seemed to know the intricacies of accounting and bookkeeping than classic literature.

He was convinced that those who stopped reading in childhood were intellectually stunted, since there is so much to be learned from literature, especially for people who can read a work in its original language.

A favorite work of Thoreau’s was Homer’s epic poem The Iliad, which became a source of comfort in his new environment. Reading, to Thoreau, could act as a guide and comfort. Perhaps you, too, can find volumes that breathe life and knowledge into your daily life or offer responses to the questions that loom over you.

Thoreau moved to Walden to show himself that there was more to modern life. And there is much for us to learn from his personal experience that we can still apply today.

To Thoreau, the move to Walden represented a return to the simple life.

Thoreau was faced with one of two responses when people learned he was setting out to live in the woods at the edge of Walden Pond: they were either intrigued by the unusual decision, or felt he had succumbed to antisocial tendencies.

In fact, Thoreau had no intention of living as a hermit.

Building a house and tending a garden are both practical and informative.

In Thoreau’s view, the houses of his era were no longer constructed with function in mind, and instead acted as status symbols. And what a symbol it was when the average home could cost ten to 15 years' worth of wages!

Instead, Thoreau saw the wisdom of supposedly “savage” peoples, like the Native Americans, who kept their tent-like wigwams simple, functional and practical. They were easy to build and designed to withstand all types of inclement weather.

At Walden, nature offered an immersive experience and an antidote to solitude.

And so it came to pass that Thoreau, with the help of a few acquaintances, built a small house not far from the shore of Walden Pond. It stood 10 by 15 feet and had enough room for a bed, a desk, a small table and three chairs.

The house cost a total of $28 to build, an amount that, in 1845, would only have been enough to cover the cost of accommodation at the nearby Cambridge College for one year – and that would have been the cost of only the room!

Thoreau's small house actually had a surprising number of visitors.

Thoreau was by no means a loner. He made frequent trips into Concord, where he would purchase flour for baking bread or sell bushels of beans.

Callers came by the house too. But Thoreau often felt troubled when it came to accommodating these visitors. His quarters were tight and the environment was hardly ideal for serious discussion. He felt that big ideas needed a large space to unfurl and reveal themselves – and that was hardly possible when everyone was crammed inside his cabin.

Thoreau was never lonely amidst all the wildlife around him.

Despite the comfort that human interaction brought, Thoreau’s real neighbors were the animals that lived all around his home.

Thoreau had a particular predilection for the company of woodland mice.

Winter provided some of the biggest challenges at Walden.

On September 22, 1845, a month after the snow had settled, Walden Pond finally froze over completely.

In the freezing temperatures, when the snow was thick and the pond was solid, living conditions in the woods became much harder for Thoreau.

Spring offered itself to Thoreau as a treasure of delights.

After the long cold winter, the reward of spring was especially sweet.

In fact, it was because he knew that he would have a front row seat to watch spring emerge at Walden Pond that Thoreau had embarked on his experiment in the woods in the first place.

Thoreau’s Walden sojourn is filled with lessons.

Finally, after two years at Walden Pond, Thoreau’s last day had arrived. It was September 6, 1847, and he began to wonder why there was any need to leave at all. But then it came to him: Walden was just one stop among many. He had only one life to live, and there would be other rich experiences waiting for him, that much was certain.

It was also clear that he’d learned a great deal during his two years there.

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What is Walden about?

Walden (1854) is the result of the two years Henry David Thoreau spent in the woods on the north shore of Walden Pond, a lake in Massachusetts. It is both a practical and philosophical account of how he sustained himself through farming and by building his own house, and what he learned about human nature by living a simpler life. Although it was a deeply personal experience, Thoreau’s approach to society teaches us how we, too, can approach the modern world.

Best quote from Walden

I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.

—Henry David Thoreau

Who should read Walden?

Students of philosophy and literature
Environmentalists and nature enthusiasts
Readers who support a move back to simple living

About the Author

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was an avid essayist, poet and philosopher. Thoreau spent much of his life exploring the relationship people have with nature, work and government. He is considered one of the leaders of the transcendentalist movement in nineteenth-century America.

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