The Idea of Self-Reliance in Henry David Thoreau's 'Walden'

Walden; or, Life in the Woods by David Henry Thoreau is very significant to the transcendentalism movement of Thoreau’s time. His ideas presented throughout the book drove others to follow the example he set before them of new ideas. David Henry Thoreau presented the idea of self-reliance in his book Walden, which is an asset that is still alive in culture today. The transcendentalism movement began in the 1820s. According to the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, transcendentalism is “an idealistic philosophy that in general emphasizes the spiritual over the material” (Elwell 1214). The Transcendentalism movement consisted of lecturers, authors, and preachers. This movement was stemmed from those lecturers, authors, and preachers wanting

Transcendentalists also are strong supporters of nature. To be one with nature is to be made complete. One must leave behind material possessions and find purpose in nature. Most importantly to the transcendentalist, they believed in being a complete individual. They were supporters of self-reliance. Ralph Waldo Emerson led the transcendentalists. His essays, poems and publications such as “Nature”, “Self-Reliance”, and “The American Scholar” influenced the transcendentalism movement. He was good friends with David Henry Thoreau, and he is much of the reason David Henry Thoreau is a transcendentalist. Emerson had a lot of influence on David. David Henry Thoreau’s book Walden begins with the succeeding two statements. “When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only. I lived there two years and two months” (Walden, 3). What is to be noticed in these simple statements is “I lived alone”, “I had built

Ralph Waldo Emerson, a leading transcendentalist and close friend of David Henry Thoreau, says, “To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, — that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost, —— and our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment” (Self-Reliance). Ralph Waldo Emerson’s writing Self-Reliance had an impact on David Henry Thoreau and is influential as to why he moved out to Walden