In the modern world, being different and not following social norms in considered odd. People who have different life values and lifestyles tend to be judged under the impression that they are different and consequently unhappy with their lives. This opinion, although predominant in today’s world, is just wrong and the works of Henry David Thoreau and Willa Cather show why. In Walden, Henry thrives on the idea of self-discovery through the connection with the nature. He disregards the values of a modern world and states that the pursuit of material things corrupts our mind. His outlook on life is unconventional, but he is certain of his value. Similarly, My Antonia by Willa Cather portrays the life of young immigrant girl, Antonia, …show more content…
He believes that in order to understand the purpose of our lives, we have to connect with the nature and understand our surrounding on a different level. In other words, we really have to view our surrounding with a different “ pair of eyes “ that enables us to disregard the materialistic values of our world and simply focus on what is around us, which is nature. David proposes that we should observe, study, and ponder the beauty of nature in an attempt to find the purpose of our lives and answer the classical life debates like what is a good life and what is a bad life? Likewise, Thoreau’s worship of nature corresponds with the idea of Individualism. The purpose of Walden is not only to tell the readers that the study of nature is the answers to all the problems, but also to inspire the need for critical reasoning and individual approach towards life choices. In other words, the purpose of Walden is also to tell us not to follow the social standards, but rather to always investigate, ponder, and pursue things individually before making a …show more content…
Unfortunately, the life in America is not as cheerful as Antonia taught it would be as she experiences lots of hostility, hardship, and misfortune. However, throughout all the predicaments and obstacles, Antonia preserves her beliefs and never succumbs to the values of a new, American culture in an attempt to shape her life. Antonia is a very positive, generous, hardworking, and exceptionally independent character. These innate traits of her personality follow her through the “thick and thin” as she swears by them under all the circumstances. For example, besides the language barrier and cultural differences, Antonia suffers the death of her father who committed suicide as the result of disappointment that he had experienced in America. Instead of scorning the meaning of life, she did whatever it took to provide for her family, which was experiencing an immense economics hardship. Everything that she earned, she gave to her family as she valued them over herself. Eventually, due to her wit and charm, Antonia got a job in the town where she found her passion for dance and made friends. Unfortunately, her passion for dance was viewed as inappropriate and her boss insisted that she chooses between her friends and the job. Unwilling to follow the orders and disappoint her friends, Antonia
In this passage from the famous text Walden, the author Henry David Thoreau, a naturalist and transcendentalist, gives an account of his experience while living in isolation at Walden pond for two years of his life. While in isolation, he sought to enjoy life away from the hustle and bustle of society and live more simplistically without concern of the small things in life.
She is very close to her father so this impacts her deeply. She feels the need to step up and care for her family. This turns Antonia into a very hard worker. She begins working with Ambrosch, her brother, by plowing the fields. She takes on the responsibilities of a man. This makes her stop going to school. This worries Jim until he finds out that Antonia is actually very hurt by the event of her father dying. Antonia cries in secret and longs to go to school.
His desire to escape from what he entered imbibed in him an acute sense of the dangers posed by the dispassionate being that nature is. Meanwhile, Thoreau voluntarily went to Walden Pond to determine whether he is capable of earning his “living by the labor of [his] hand only” (“Economy”, par. 1). He was trying to prove his ideas on self-reliance to be correct and applicable in the real world. Thus, he had an incentive to focus on the positive aspects of being alone with the surrounding
My Antonia, by Willa Cather, is a book tracing the story of a young man, Jim Burden, and his relationship with a young woman, Antonia Shimerda. Jim narrates the entire story in first person, relating accounts and memories of his childhood with Antonia. He traces his journey to the Nebraska where he and Antonia meet and grow up. Jim looks back on all of his childhood scenes with Antonia with nearly heartbreaking nostalgia. My Antonia, is a book that makes many parallels to the sadness and frailty, but also the quiet beauty in life, and leaves the reader with a sense of profound sorrow. One of the main ways Cather is able to invoke these emotions in the reader is through the ongoing theme of separation. Willa Cather develops her theme of separation through death, the changing seasons, characters leaving and the process of growing apart.
Have you ever woke up in the morning and asked yourself, “Why am I living this life?” Throughout the book of Walden, Henry David Thoreau questions the lifestyles that people choose; he makes his readers wonder if they have chosen the kind of lifestyle that give them the greatest amount of happiness. Thoreau stated, “Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them().” This quote is important because most of society these days are so caught up in work and trying to make ends meet that they lose the values in life. Thoreau was forced to change his life when he found himself unhappy after a purchase for a farm fell through. On Thoreau’s journey he moves to Walden and builds a house and life from nothing but hard work, symbolizes many different objects.
Jim and Ántonia work both and with against each other through their whole childhood. Ántonia cannot go to school so Jim schools her. Jim cares deeply for her, has certain expectations of her and he finds it very difficult to look past her failure
His writings were the exact bases of transcendentalism, which is becoming one with nature because he put the theory of living as a transcendentalist to actual life. He published Walden, which was written in first person about his 2 year experience living in a cabin that he built in the wilderness. Walden expressed the story of how Thoreau moved to the open wilderness to become one with nature in order for him to find out everything about himself. He survived off the land by only using things that nature supplied him with. He begins to see that nature is superior than the society he lived in. He learns how to live in a place that is just a place for him to be able to sit, and he begins to question what the real necessities that people need to survive are? Walden put many things into perspective, which Thoreau shared because he wanted to people to understand the true meaning for living and in order for people to understand they need to seek the natural state of life. He valued simplicity, not bounding their life to material
Henry David Thoreau wanted to express his thoughts to the world. He did so by writing Walden a book that gives insights on the world from Thoreau’s point of view. “Walden” gives valuable advice in all types of fields. It shows aspects of Thoreau’s personality and how he views the world. To the best of my knowledge, Henry has many characteristics that he expressed in this book. Most of what he wrote was impressive. Honestly, I was extremely enthusiastic about reading this. Initially, I thought it would be a book like Great Expectations. But my expectations were wrong. I did not think I would actually learn things. Surprisingly, it sparked motivation in me. I wanted to be more in touch with nature. It seemed like Henry David Thoreau had everything figured out. He was calm and thoughtful and he seemed to look at life in a different way. Being in solitude in nature must really get you in touch with your inner self. It allows you to look at your flaws and look at your talents. I was greatly intrigued by every page of Walden.
My Antonia by Willa Cather is an American novel that narrates the story of a few immigrant families who move to rustic Nebraska. My Antonia is situated in pioneer-period Nebraska and is the story of most perceptibly the complexity of Antonia Shimerda, the deprived child of Bohemian immigrants and Jim Burden, an intuitive Virginian who was orphaned at the age of ten, is sent to live with his grandparents in Nebraska. Jim Burden is the protagonist that narrates his memoir in his own point of view.
Thoreau conveys many points in his writing and a large recurring one is the state of society. As stated before, he believed that people are too focused on physical gain and modernization which leads them into desperation. He adds on to this belief later in the book asking that above all else whether it be money or fame he be given honesty (Thoreau 246). To Thoreau, the truth is more important than anything measurable in status. Thoreau believes that a minimalist lifestyle is a good lifestyle, similar to Mccandless. He speaks of how it is good that he can put all of his belonging in one pile in his yard because it removes the clutter from his life (Thoreau 85). He also says that his best quality in life is to want very little, because it keeps himself true to himself and keeps him from distraction. Thoreau also believes that every man should be one in himself not oppressed by the government. He says that everyone should be able to be themselves whether is is in accord with the government or not (Thoreau 240). He is essentially saying that the government should not be a part of people's life decisions only to maintain the
To conclude, Thoreau believed that people should be ruled by conscience and that people should fight against injustice through non-violence according to “Civil Disobedience.” Besides, he believed that we should simplify our lives and take some time to learn our essence in the nature. Moreover, he deemed that tradition and money were unimportant as he demonstrated in his book, Walden. I suggested that people should learn from Thoreau to live deliberately and spend more time to go to the nature instead of watching television, playing computer games, and among other things, such that we could discover who we were and be endeavored to build foundations on our dreams.
My Antonia, Jim's nostalgia for the past is represented by nature, symbolic elements, and above all Antonia. The Nebraskan prairies are beautiful and picturesque and set the scene for a memorable story. Big farm houses and windmills placed throughout the graceful flowing golden yellow grass become a nostalgic aspect of Jim as he leaves his childhood life behind. The frontier includes destructive and depressing winters and luscious summers that
Female agency is a significant topic of exploration in Cather’s My Ántonia, as throughout the novel many female characters display dominance within their small community in ways ranging from household management and finances, to making individual life choices. This type of personal agency is particularly impactful, given the typically restrictive and traditional mindset that is associated with nineteenth century towns such as the one depicted in the novel, particularly in regard to women. Interestingly, the women who are portrayed as having and enacting agency in the novel are the immigrant girls, particularly Ántonia and Lena. Each of these characters occupy the space of the social “other” in the American landscape; not only are they female, they also come from large immigrant families that are on the lower end of the socio-economic scale. However, in response to these obstacles, both Ántonia and Lena manage to gain agency within their circumstances. Through acts such as youthful rebellion, choosing whether they wish to marry or not, and eventually making independent career choices the experience of social marginalization proves to be a useful tool in the lives of these women, ultimately providing the motivation and means through which to achieve autonomy that results in subjective success; indicating that for Cather, female agency and freedom are both imminent and ultimately positive evolutions in the growth of American culture.
The main element of “Why I Went to the Woods” is nature and to live without distractions. In order for Thoreau to be able to do this, he went into the woods to be one with nature to make sure he was not missing what was really important. Thoreau presents his point by stating, “I wanted to live deep and suck out the marrow of life, to live so sturdily” (Thoreau 579). Thoreau wanted to live deep within nature, to take in all nature has to offer, and to get a deeper understanding of his own life. We all have an opportunity to have the same tranquility as Thoreau. Nature is one of the greatest gifts that is given to us freely. We could all have a deeper fulfillment by consuming the same peacefulness in our own mind and souls that Thoreau had. The society we live in today is complex and very dependent, opposite of the life that Thoreau had wanted to live. You do not need to have material items to have a fulfilled life, but a fulfilled spirit. We as a society have become greedy and selfish
At Walden Pond, David Thoreau explores himself and nature. He learns from this experience that nature is medicine to man, and that man should release themselves from the shackles of the city and town in order to see the beauty of nature. In writing this description of Walden Pond at springtime, he illustrates nature at its peak. His readers learn from him, the enlightened, the majesty of nature and its inconceivable paradoxes.