Comparing Lydia Maria Child And Henry David Thoreau

Lydia Maria Child and Henry David Thoreau expose their private cultural realities, while challenging urban life through rural nature at Walden Pond and the urban streets in New York. Furthermore, Lydia Maria Child and Henry David Thoreau are both influenced by romanticism through transcendentalism, which relates how objects of the world are essentially only small excerpts of the all-inclusive universe. Although Lydia Maria Child and Henry David Thoreau are similar in their quest to challenge superficial urban life and individual simplicity, each author respond differently to their vivid surroundings and celebrating togetherness or with individual loneliness.

Lydia Maria Child and Henry David Thoreau both challenge simplicity in cultural realities,

however the authors individually challenge their cultural realities in their own unique settings. Lydia Child, a known activist, responds to the understanding of a certain spiritual struggle within an individual, and the temptations of existence surrounding New York. Consequently, Child, who celebrated togetherness, is exposing life in a major city, containing a great number of people within an inadequate space. For example, Child explains, “My spirit is weary for rural rambles. It is sad walking in the city (109).” Child refers to the only joy derived from living her urban life was the rising and setting of the sun, which distracted her from the weary eyes searching for comfort and hope within the world. Child’s weariness is rooted deep within loneliness of the soul. Furthermore, the author refers to the economy of New York stating, “Pence I will give thee, though political economy reprove the dead (192).” Consequently, Child elucidates the impression that distributing charity may result in overall dependency. Lydia Child presents a specific example to a solution of this economic problem. Lydia Maria Child states, “if the Law of Love prevailed, vases of Gold and Silver might even more abound–but no homeless outcast would sit shivering beneath their glittering mockery (192).” The author’s previous statement regarding providing a solution consisted of living more simply and avoiding the distraction of fast-moving urban New York.
Like Lydia Maria Child, Thoreau being one of the fathers of transcendentalism, is also captivated by the thought of simplicity bringing depth to ones mind.

For example, Thoreau wanting to learn the true meaning to living life states in Walden, "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life (235).” “Furthermore, Henry David Thoreau lives out two years of his life with simplicity and truth at Walden Pond. For instance, Thoreau states, “I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life (235).” Consequently, Henry David Thoreau believed nature could free an individual by forcing a person to develop individual thought. In order to achieve a happier existence, Thoreau responds to simplifying human presence on earth, while mastering self-reliance. Thoreau argues, “most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.” Consequently, the author relates how simplicity is best compared to the technology that makes life seem simple, actually making life more complicated. Psychological and physiological necessities are what keep people pursing life, and luxuries hinder people from reaching full potential in life. Thoreau offers solutions to problems of lost souls living with the distractions of life within the realm. For example, the author states,

“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail (144).” Henry David Thoreau desires people to concentrate on fewer issues that make one worry and to keep life as simple as conceivable. Thoreau also questions time within boundaries of life, by stating, “Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is (280)." Henry David Thoreau grows to understand life by focusing on the truth that time disappears quickly, so Thoreau spends his life connecting with nature to experience complete happiness. The purpose within writing Walden, Henry David Thoreau wished to inspire people to change their lives and live deliberately.
While Lydia Maria Child and Henry David Thoreau equally share the ideas of achieving simplicity within the soul. However, Thoreau challenges individualism and the importance of self-reliance in contrast with social existence, through exemplifying his values of solitude in contrast with freedom. Henry David Thoreau wished for people to meet their lives and live them to the fullest, without devoting oneself to desperation brought upon by materialistic things, similar to the views of Lydia Maria Child.