Comaring Thoreau To Kerouac

Recollections of the Past:

From Pioneer Naturalist to Mountaineer Buddhist

(Thoreau and Kerouac)

An old adage says "never let the truth get in the way of a good story". However, where is the line drawn between embellishment and fabrication? Artistic privilege is just as it sounds; a liberty to manipulate and coerce verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and other parts of speech and sentence structure to yield a far more pleasing narrative. As with any privilege there comes responsibility, in this case, a responsibility to not change the original intent of the story or the context in which it took place.

In "Walden, Or Life in the Woods" (1995), by Henry David Thoreau, he takes a very analytical approach to his recollections of the past. Through the use of colorful descriptions, he paints a vivid account of his surrounding scenery with no detectable embellishment while providing an extremely accurate report of his experience. "But while we are confined to books, though the select and classic, and read only particular written languages, which are themselves but dialects and provincial, we are in danger of forgetting the language which all things and events speak without metaphor, which alone is copious and standard." (Thoreau 72) In this description of sound, the level of scholarly, colorful language is clearly evident. Comparing Thoreau to his modern counterpart Jack Kerouac, in "The Dharma Bums" (1958), Kerouac writes with far less colorful language but provides more detail on personal sentiment and emotion. "Far off, just the sound of the yards where they were kicking cuts of cars with a great splowm waking up all El Paso, but me." (Kerouac 154) Kerouac is still descriptive, however is much less academic in his word cho...

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In retrospect, Thoreau uses less colorful language, and keeps a far more detailed account of his experiences. He documents, in detail, everything from the dimensions of his living arrangements and the pond, to all his surroundings and his encounters with his neighbors and adventures into town. Kerouac takes a different route, writing extremely nostalgic and philosophical about his trips and escapades. Imagination plays little role in either piece, where fact and detailed memory are manifest throughout the entirety of both. Moreover, the theme of the "Value of Simplicity" is visible in both accounts. Lastly, Kerouac writes with similar style but uses more colorful language much to the detail used by his counterpart. In conclusion, Kerouac who may be for simplicity sake, termed the modern day Thoreau proves to be very similar in his literary approach.