SAMPLE RESPONSE TO THOREAU'S WALDEN 

     The excerpt from Thoreau’s Walden that was assigned in class discusses the flaws in humankind’s way of life, but provides no practical solution to the problem or suggestion on how we should act. Instead, the journal focuses more on how we should think. Like the philosophers he speaks highly of, Thoreau lived humbly and minimally “alone, in the woods. . .and earned (his) living by the labor of (his) hands only”. Based on this journal excerpt, Thoreau never planned to live this way for the rest of his years, but instead to “see if (he) could not learn what it had to teach”. Thus, Thoreau does not propose that we all live alone in the woods, despite his description of how rich a life it was while he was living it, but instead implies that he should merely read his journal, pay attention to its teaching, and soak in the information for our own mental gain rather than act upon it in any way.

            This is a clear example of Romantic values over realistic ones. The aid that Thoreau proposes to give us is internal, an insight into what it means to live and not to simply wait for death. He chastises the ideals of the farmer, who he says lives greedily, defensively and only for money, but he doesn’t deny what farmers provide for the people. When Thoreau wrote his journal, I don’t assume that he wrote it on paper he printed himself with ink that he manufactured himself. Thoreau understands that farmers must exist, and by no means must we stop being farmers, printers, ink manufacturers, and so on. Instead, he asserts that the farmer’s view of life, rather than his way of life, is where the problem lies. Thoreau doesn’t point his finger at all farmers, but rather uses them as an example of the type of thinking that we as a people must not indulge ourselves in if we want to get the most out of our lives. Thoreau’s aim with this journal is not to tell us all that we should throw away our possessions and devolve into hunter-gatherers, but that we should focus our mind away from our possessions and evolve into a higher state of mind. That is the difference between the mimetic and the romantic.