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Henry David thoreau

Henry David thoreau. Walden . Thoreau the Failure. Lasted only 2 weeks as a schoolteacher Public lectures were uninspiring Woman to whom he proposed turned him down Had little interest in the family business

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Henry David thoreau

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  1. Henry David thoreau Walden

  2. Thoreau the Failure • Lasted only 2 weeks as a schoolteacher • Public lectures were uninspiring • Woman to whom he proposed turned him down • Had little interest in the family business • Had an impressive Harvard education, but did not realize his literary ambitions (…yet) • Lived with Ralph Waldo Emerson and his family for three years • Known as being “tedious, tiresome, and intolerable”

  3. A New Beginning • At 28, moved to a cabin he built along the shores of Walden Pond near Concord, MA (10 ft. X 15 ft.) • Emerson said that “[Thoreau] had no ambition.”

  4. Thoreau the Eccentric • Dad was a manufacturer of pencils; Mom ran a boardinghouse • Thoreau tramped through the woods and fields around his house as a boy • Attended church in a green coat because “the rules required black” • Very well read, but a middle-of-the-road student • Turned down an adventurous sailing voyage in favor of his own “inward voyage”

  5. Thoreau the Eccentric • "[Thoreau] is as ugly as sin, long-nosed, queer-mouthed, and with uncouth and rustic, though courteous manners, corresponding very well with such an exterior. But his ugliness is of an honest and agreeable fashion, and becomes him much better than beauty.” Thoreau also wore a neck-beard for many years, which he insisted many women found attractive.

  6. Life at Walden • Attempted to rediscover the magnificence of a simple life led close to nature • In reality, town was only two miles away. • Thoreau looked towards town and saw people too caught up in making a living that they had become one-dimensional. • Sought to awaken these people and show them that the “vital facts of life” were literally in their own back yards

  7. Thoreau the Protestor • Refused to pay his poll tax in protest of the Mexican War • Spent a night in jail • Helped fugitives escaping slavery • One of the first defenders of John Brown, the radical abolitionist • Lived in relative isolation at Walden for over two years • His “Resistance to Civil Government” influenced Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. • Died of tuberculosis – “Never has a man died with so much pleasure and peace.”

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