Independent Reading Essay

Charles Saint Jean
  
Ryan Gallagher  
 
12 Cp Period 1
 
 November  4th 2010    
  
                                                                  Walden  
   In Henry David Thoreau's memoir Walden,the character which is Thoreau is a simple person who suggests that it is better when people live a simple life.He makes the readers wonder if they have chosen the kind of life that will really offer them happiness.The author wonders if the truly valuable elements of life are being taken advantage of if a person isn't living simply.    
  As he states in the beginning of the book,"most men even in this comparatively  free country ,though mere ignorance and mistake,are occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that is finer fruits cannot be plucked by things."This is to me means that people care more about the good things in life and easier work instead of nature's gifts and hard work.Thoreau draws a parallel between others preoccupation with money and his own enjoyment of non- monetary wealth.    
    He told of the villagers how he spends his days with them chatting until everyone is gone or just listening to the gossip whether it comes from people or the newspapers,in which he thought was the refreshing in its own way.When he had "worn out all his village friends"he would go for walks in unfamiliar woods and new pastires and eventually end up back at the cabin in his home of solitude.He  would take to hold on life and spend the day more as the animals do.The protagonist is the environment.      
   Thoreau was a period in the history of the individual when the hunters were the best men.A boy who has never  fired a gun is so more inhumane but his education has been sadly neglected.The young man introduction to the forest is the most original part of himself.Thoreau believes that hunting is a stage of man's development.He believes that every man is the lord of realm besides which the earthly  empire the Czar is but a pretty state ,a hummock left by the ice.Some car be the patriotic who have no self respect.  
   Thoreau left the woods for the same reason that he went there which to me is because he had more to do in life and more dreams to fill ,and did not want to waste anymore time on Walden Pond ,there's so much to do elsewhere.