Walden by SparkNotes

Author:SparkNotes [SparkNotes]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The Village and The Ponds

Summary: The Village

Around noon, after his morning chores are finished, Thoreau takes a second bath in the pond and prepares to spend the rest of his day at leisure. Several times a week he hikes into Concord, where he gathers the latest gossip and meets with townsmen at the main centers of activity, the grocery, the bar, the post office, and the bank. Stores of all kinds try to seduce him with their advertised wares, but Thoreau has no interest in consumer splurges, and makes his way back home without lingering too long in the marketplace. He often makes his way back to Walden Pond in the dark, which is challenging. But with practice he grows accustomed to the way, feeling his path out by the neighboring trees or the rut of the path below. Other people, he notes, are not as adapted to nighttime walking. Even in the village itself, he says, many lose their way in the darkness, sometimes wandering for hours. Thoreau does not consider such dislocation to be a bad thing. Through being lost, he says, one truly comes to understand oneself and “the infinite extent of our relations.”

On one of his journeys into Concord, Thoreau is detained, arrested, and jailed for his refusal to pay a poll tax to “the state which buys and sells men, women, and children, like cattle at the door of its senate-house.” After a night in jail he is released, and returns to Walden Pond, remarkably unexcited about his incarceration. Thoreau calmly muses about how, except for governmental intrusion, he lives without fear of being disturbed by anyone. He does not find it necessary to lock up his own possessions and always welcomes visitors of all classes. He says that theft exists only in communities where “some have got more than is sufficient while others have not enough.”

Summary: The Ponds

A field of water betrays the spirit that is in the air. It is continually receiving new life and motion from above. It is intermediate between land and sky.

(See Important Quotations Explained)

When Thoreau has enough of town life, he spends his leisure time in the country. At times Thoreau takes a boat on the pond and plays his flute, and he goes fishing at midnight as well, drifting between waking and dreaming until he snaps awake when he feels a tug on his line. This fishing vignette allows Thoreau to segue into an extended meditation on the local Concord ponds, especially Walden.

Although Walden Pond itself is not particularly grand, Thoreau says, it is remarkably deep and pure. Depending on the point of view and the time of day, the water of the pond may appear blue, green, or totally transparent. It makes the body of the bather appear pure white, rather than yellowish as the river water does. Thoreau reports that Walden Pond is said by some to be bottomless. White stones surround the shore, allowing Thoreau to venture a wry etymology of its name (“walled-in”), and hills rise beyond.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.