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Darrell Fischer

Mrs. McCabe

APLAC

Period 6

October 12, 2017

“Where I Lived and What I Lived For” Response (RJ#1)

In Henry David Thoreau’s most well-known work, Walden, he outlines his philosophical

viewpoint and describes how that affects the things he does. This purpose follows within the

selected section from Walden, entitled “Where I Lived and What I Lived For”. Thoreau

discusses both the places that he has lived, such as Walden pond, a concrete topic, and what he

seeks in life as well as his personal philosophy, a more abstract concept, and how it contrasts

with traditional philosophy. The final two paragraphs focus primarily on the second purpose:

providing and describing his personal philosophy regarding reality and time. Thoreau

extensively utilized metaphor and contrasting abstract and concrete diction to accomplish his

purpose.

The extensive use of metaphor contributes to Thoreau’s purpose by allowing him to

drawing parallels to nature, exposing the naturalistic philosophies of transcendentalism, as well

as directly explaining his philosophies. Thoreau explains that he views reality as uncomplicated

but constantly shifting by comparing it to a river, stating “Time is but the stream I go afishing

in”. Time, an abstract concept, is here compared to a concrete topic (a river), which makes the

idea more digestible to his readers. This metaphor exemplifies a constant theme throughout

Thoreau’s work: the juxtaposition of concrete topics with the more abstract. Thoreau wishes
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to convey his abstract philosophies but can only do so effectively through metaphor because

otherwise the ideas would not be comprehensible. Phrases like “Its thin current slides away but

eternity remains” contain juxtaposition between abstract diction and ideas (“eternity”) and

concrete diction and ideas (“current”). The juxtaposition of diction highlights the juxtaposition

of ideas in this passage. Thoreau contrasts the idea that moments slip away with the idea that

time itself is eternal, and the fact that concrete diction is used primarily in the section dealing

with the first idea, while abstract diction is used in conjunction with the second idea serves

primarily to emphasize this contrast. While initially seeming paradoxical, this is the nature of

Thoreau’s philosophy. He seeks to redefine traditional knowledge and philosophy, and in doing

so contradicts traditional wisdom, such as the commonly held belief that adults are more

intelligent than children. However, Thoreau counters this by stating “I have always been

regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.” The paradox presented here shows

Thoreau’s resistance to accept traditionally held knowledge, and his effort to rethink both

knowledge, and the best way to live life. The paradoxical arguments enhance the freshness of

Thoreau’s views. Another way the uniqueness of his arguments are enhanced is by poetic tone

created by use of metaphor. In this time, most writing was not poetic, especially in the United

States, but instead tended to be more literal in nature. Thoreau, however, specifically chose to

extensively use metaphor and a poetic tone to emphasize how different his views were to

others of the time. For example, Thoreau states “My head is hands and feet”. While initially

meaningless to the reader, in context, Thoreau intends this to mean that his head is the

instrument in which he performs the majority of his work, as most people work with their

hands or their feet. The difficulty of the metaphor within the passage creates a closer
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connection with poetry or prose texts, which more typically utilize this rhetorical device, which

further distances himself from traditional thinking of the time.