Thursday, June 16, 2011

Transcendentalism: Walden and Into the Wild Comparison


Kate Sullenberger
English 389: Transcendentalism

American culture and society seem to have a natural affinity for progressive thought, ideals, and systems, an affinity whose roots can be seen in our cultural attitudes of industry, expansion, and success.  Perhaps it is due to this glorification of originality that the journeys of self-discovery seen in Thoreau’s Walden and Krakauer’s Into the Wild are so wildly popular (for the most part) with the American population.  Walden is Thoreau’s account of the two years during which he retreated to nature to “live deliberately,” and the book acts as both a how-to guide and a carefully constructed detailing of Thoreau’s philosophical system (Thoreau 1854, 74).  Into the Wild depicts Chris McCandless’s modern-day journey across America and into the Alaskan wilderness, following in the footsteps of Thoreau in an effort to live by pure ideals.  On the surface, these stories appear to be highly similar, with their respective heroes maintaining the ideas of personal virtue and liberal individualism.  And while it is true that Thoreau and McCandless exhibit a few coinciding ideals, this paper will seek to unveil the finer points of their individual philosophies through a more thorough analysis of Walden, Into the Wild, and literary critiques of these works; a more in-depth understanding of Thoreau and McCandless will illuminate the various points at which their philosophies both resemble and depart from one another.  Finally, in light of potential differences, I would like to hypothesize upon whether McCandless’s journey, and his motives for it, would be supported or critiqued by Thoreau, who clearly paved the path for self-discovery in nature.


First, it is important to a comparison of Thoreau and McCandless to discuss the idea of liberalism, which has both a political connotation and a Romance-era inspired identity.  In his critique of Into the Wild, an article entitled “Opting Out: The Fantasy of Liberal Independence in Into the Wild,” Robert Watkins presents these two variants of liberalism.  Watkin’s describes a political liberalism as one “that requires a willingness to cast off the old in search of the new… [It] is deeply individualistic, informed by individual rights and freedoms” (Watkins 2009, 8).  Thus, this first type of liberalism manifests itself in the basic framework of the American government, allowing for a (theoretical) loyalty to individual rights above all else.  The second concept of liberalism that Watkins introduces does not have its basis in politics, but draws inspiration from “Romantic thinkers such as Wilhelm von Humboldt and Romantic poets such as Lord Byron” (Watkins 2009, 8).  Watkins groups the ideals depicted in Walden and Into the Wild within this Romantic liberalism “that pairs a deep suspicion of contaminated society with a solitary embrace of pure nature…[and] is more intuitive, Romantic, and impulsive, and more interested in the freedom of self-making apart from society and away from power” (Watkins 2009, 8-9).  Thus, this type of liberalism invokes the idea of the mystical free spirit who revels in the boundless charms of nature, wishing to escape the rational and politically-based liberalism.  Watkins’s differentiation between the two types of liberalism proves incredibly useful to a comparison of Walden and Into the Wild, yet he makes a hasty and uninformed judgment when he classifies Thoreau’s retreat to nature as more Romantic liberalism than a political one.


Thoreau’s decision to move to the isolation of the woods surrounding Walden pond was as much an attempt to live practically as it was to “live deliberately.”  On one hand, Thoreau confronted this experiment of isolation with the utmost attention to logic and detail, so that when “the essential facts of life” revealed themselves to him, he could be certain that he had controlled every possible variable within his power (Thoreau 1854, 74).  Thoreau’s assertion that that “No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof” indicates his intention of tediously controlling every aspect of his life in the woods and proactively searching for an unshakable foundation for his philosophy of life (Thoreau 1854, 11).  Walden details Thoreau’s economical construction of his cottage, his simple and modest furniture, and his bland yet frugal diet (for which, he “regularly and faithfully procured” essential ingredients from the nearby village) (Thoreau 1854, 52).  Through this practicality and faithful adherence to a simple, methodical way of life, it is clear that Thoreau retreats to the woods in a self-conscious effort to discover his own truths, the truths that will provide spiritual and intellectual coherence within his being.  He does not retire to isolation with a pretentious assumption that he has discovered the only way to live purely, and that this way is necessarily removed from society within the wild realm of nature.  Rather he goes to Walden pond in order to more clearly understand what life means to him on a very personal level.  In his extensive study of Thoreau’s Walden, Thoreau’s Living Ethics: Walden and the Pursuit of Virtue, Philip Cafaro identifies this difference between passively removing oneself from society and deliberately seeking the key to life.  In reference to Thoreau’s claim that he “wished to live deliberately,” Cafaro asserts that “Deliberation is an act of optimism, signaling the belief that we have choices; that we can distinguish better from worse choices; that we can act on that knowledge and improve our lives” (Cafaro 2004).


As it turns out, Thoreau benefited greatly from his optimistic deliberation; he achieved both self-knowledge and a more general knowledge of “virtue ethics,” upon which he expounds in Walden.  On a personal level, Thoreau’s experiment with living simply and sustaining himself with just the bare minimum goes according to plan.  He resides in his self-constructed house, fishes regularly, and occupies his time with reading and taking in his surroundings.  Thoreau, having asserted that he “love[s] society as much as most… [and is] naturally no hermit,” receives and entertains guests regularly at his modest house (Thoreau 1854, 112).  Apart from these practical details of his daily life, Thoreau’s simple lifestyle affords him the opportunity to develop his personal thoughts concerning nature, solitude, and spirituality.  The role that nature plays in Thoreau’s life in twofold.  First, he enjoys the simplicity found in nature—the natural growth, the animal life, and the purity of the pond.  More importantly, however, Nature offers Thoreau the rapturous feeling of being spiritually whole that he traveled to the woods to experience.  After some time at Walden pond, Thoreau confidently writes that “The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening.  It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched” (Thoreau 1854, 171).  Although he cannot fully explain the “intangible” beauty of nature, Thoreau does know that it is Nature’s spirit that makes his own spirit fulfilled.


If the analysis of Walden were to end here, then Thoreau would certainly classify as Watkins’s Romantic liberal.  However, both Cafaro and Paul Lauter, author of the article “Thoreau’s Prophetic Testimony,” would argue that Walden is not only Thoreau’s personal memoir of self-discovery, but also a general invitation to readers to achieve their highest potential.  Lauter disregards Thoreau’s critics who dismiss him as a Romantic idealist, believing that Walden serves as a “prophetic testimony,” which he defines as “an embodiment of man’s search to incarnate his ultimate values in his actions and the final means by which that man would attempt to move others toward their own testimonies to such values” (Lauter 1962, 113).  In this sense, Thoreau begins to depart from the idea of Romantic liberalism, for he clearly has more than his own self-interest as his goal.  Cafaro, too, believes that Thoreau writes Walden as a call to action for its readers, citing “Flourishing, self-culture, enriching our experience, developing our faculties” as Thoreau’s general desire for his audience (Cafaro 2004).  In spite of the fact that Thoreau frequently insists upon an individual paving his own path, such as when he defends the “man [who] does not keep pace with his companions…because he hears a different drummer,” he has a surprising amount of advice as to how one should go about this self-culture (Thoreau 1854, 255).  For instance, he “places a very high value on the pursuit of knowledge and thinking well,” advises the reader to “not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends,” and “asks for a “noble” culture that educates into an appreciation of beauty and learning” (Cafaro 2004; Thoreau 1854, 257).  While it is true that Thoreau displays a tendency in Walden to assume that his readers value the same principles and resulting actions, the underlying “chief end” for readers remains “the romantic concept of Bildung…[which] involves fully cultivating all our human capabilities, particularly our intellectual, aesthetic, and spiritual capabilities” (Cafaro 2004).


If we accept Walden as Thoreau’s testimony, calling others to a path of intellectual and spiritual excellence, and simultaneously accept that Thoreau calls readers to a Romantic Bildung, then we arrive at an understanding of Thoreau’s philosophy that qualifies as both types of liberalism that Watkins defines: the more society-conscious political liberalism, and the more self-conscious Romantic liberalism.
There is most certainly one reader of Walden who defends the notion that the book acts as testimony—Chris McCandless, the subject of Krakauer’s Into the Wild and Sean Penn’s subsequent film adaptation.  Through interviews with McCandless’ family members and friends, Krakauer paints a vivid picture of the boy who trekked across America and eventually into Alaska in order to pursue his personal ideals of freedom and virtue.  The descriptions given to Krakauer by those who knew McCandless often bear an incredible resemblance to our perception of Thoreau.  Most importantly to the comparison of Thoreau and McCandless, Krakauer describes McCandless as someone who “took life’s inequities to heart,” “believed that wealth was shameful, corrupting, inherently evil,” and “measured himself and those around him by an impossibly rigorous moral code” (Krakauer 1996, 113, 115, 122).  Given this depiction of McCandless, one that reveals his personality as highly individualistic and passionate, some light is shed upon why he would give the contents of his savings account to charity, burn his remaining cash, and head for the Alaskan wilderness without warning to family or friends.  Not surprisingly, among McCandless’ possessions found with his body in Alaska were books with highlighted excerpts from Walden.  We are fortunate to have a firsthand account of Thoreau’s time in nature, but are not afforded the same luxury in McCandless’s case.  Therefore, certain assumptions must be made as to McCandless’ personal motives for retreating to Alaska in a comparison of Thoreau and McCandless’ respective beliefs; luckily, these assumptions are based upon Krakauer’s presumably advanced investigative skills.


Certain similarities between Thoreauvian ideals and those of McCandless are apparent in Walden and Into the Wild, allowing for Cafaro’s description of McCandless’s journey as “Walden-esque.”  For one, McCandless’s intended goal for his cross-country trek was “to invent an utterly new life for himself, one in which he would be free to wallow in unfiltered experience;” the latter half of this goal closely mimics Thoreau’s more spiritually-driven experiences in nature, the ones that he presents in Walden in rapturous prose (Krakauer 1996, 22-23).  Both men not only exhibited intellectual curiosity concerning the meaningful components of life, but they acted upon the principle of discovering, if possible, their individual notions of the spirit of life.  For this reason, Thoreau and McCandless represent “the best of liberal individualism, encompassing risk and refusal, optimism and utter confidence” (Watkins 2009, 11).
Next, there is Thoreau’s declaration in Walden to his “fellows,” “As long as possible live free and uncommitted” (Thoreau 1854, 69).  McCandless absolutely took note of this advice, almost to a fault, ridding himself of all burdensome possessions and actively avoiding emotional attachment with people that he met during his cross-country trek.  Material possessions and any excess beyond the bare necessities seem to represent barriers to Thoreau and McCandless’ higher goals of freedom, and intellectual and spiritual excellence.


As for solitude, Thoreau recalls from his retreat to nature that he “experienced sometimes that the most sweet and tender, the most innocent and encouraging society may be found in any natural object,” inferring that isolation in nature provides simple and beautiful comforts to those who are receptive (Thoreau 1854, 105).  McCandless clearly had no qualms with isolation, for in choosing the Alaskan wilderness as his destination, he was well aware that he would be completely cut off from human society.  McCandless’ parents describe him as having “a darker side…characterized by monomania, impatience, and unwavering self-absorption,” so perhaps McCandless wished to experience the “sweet and tender” society in nature as a potential means of maintaining this self-absorption through romanticized revelry in nature, while calming the intensity of other emotions (Krakauer 1996, 120).
In light of these similarities, along with McCandless’s attention to Thoreau’s more prophetic statements and Romantic poet Lord Byron’s poetry, McCandless definitely fits the bill as an adherent to Watkins’s Romantic liberalism.  Where Thoreau and McCandless’ paths begin to diverge is in the extent to which they recognize “the reality of subjection to social relations and conventions, and even nature itself” (Watkins 2009, 14).  Firstly, Thoreau clearly recognizes the inevitability of societal conventions; he simply wishes to encourage his fellow human beings to a higher standard of living, one which would value a cultured mind and spirit over possessions, wealth, and blind acceptance of conventional thought.  McCandless, on the other hand, became so dismayed by society that, rather than cultivating his ability to think and feel liberally within society, he chose to “fetishize refusal in his search for purity” (Watkins 2009, 18).  Indeed, it does appear as if McCandless takes his idealism one step further than Thoreau, simply “opting out” of society rather than actively attempting to transform it.  


Watkins identifies a key dichotomy between liberal “refusal” and “resistance” in his discussion of Into the Wild.  Absolute refusal of all subjectifications to society, government, and customs “urges escape over negotiation, indulging the fantasy of independence rather than cultivating a recognition of interdependence” (Watkins 2009, 1).  This is the attitude that McCandless adopted, seen in his complete avoidance of personal relationships and his abandonment of all aspects of his former life.  A “resistance” to necessary subjectifications, the mindset that Thoreau maintains, “recognizes the need for complex social negotiations of inherited customs, cultures, and circumstances as part of liberalism’s desire for freedom” (Watkins 2009, 4).  Thoreau exemplifies this attitude by writing to the American people, the members of society, in an attempt to inspire them to better themselves.  Thoreau overtly asserts that he “love[s] society as much as most,” while McCandless allowed his disapproval of society to drive him to an absolute refusal of it.


In addition to the stark difference between their views of society, Thoreau and McCandless also part ways in their opinions and usages of nature.  Thoreau, as we have discussed, ventured to Walden pond with a purpose for himself; he believed that the simplicity of nature would better allow him to discern the true nature of life.  Thoreau went to nature with a plan, which he thoroughly and methodically carried out, hoping that it would lead him to results.  In this way, nature was almost secondary to Thoreau’s intentions at the start, although it did prove to play a large role in his spiritual awakening.  Contrastingly, nature, or the wilderness, acted as McCandless’s end goal.  He set off on his journey with no real plan, other than to arrive at complete freedom in the Alaskan wilderness.  Whereas Thoreau exhibited the highest attention to detail and strategy while at Walden pond, for McCandless, “nuance, strategy, and anything beyond the rudimentaries of technique were wasted on [him].  The only way he cared to tackle a challenge was head-on, right now, applying the full brunt of his extraordinary energy” (Krakauer 1996, 111).  McCandless “configure[d] the wild as free, free from power and the subjections of others as well as time and space themselves,” and he intended to obtain this freedom, plan or no plan (Watkins 2009, 14-15).  From the start of Walden, the reader can sense that Thoreau retreats to nature with a purpose, not as a means of creating his personal paradise in the woods where he will forever remain in a heightened mystical state.  Into the Wild, however, does often leave readers (and viewers) wondering if McCandless planned on remaining in the wilderness for a prolonged period of time in an effort to create a sustainable Romanticist’s safe haven.


The question remains, then, in spite of these differences, Would Thoreau appreciate Chris McCandless’s attempt at living purely?  Absolutely.  McCandless achieved more than most by acting completely independently, in a journey that Thoreau would deem as “advance[ing] confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavor[ing] to live the life which he has imagined” (Thoreau 1854, 253).  Despite certain ideological differences, seen in McCandless’s pure adherence to a Romance-era based liberalism as opposed to Thoreau’s combination of the two types of liberalism, Thoreau would not seek to critique McCandless’s individual path to spiritual wholeness, however flighty it may have been.  Furthermore, McCandless’s journey to Alaska fully demonstrates “the Romantic concept of Bildung” that Cafaro argues is central to Thoreau’s ethics, for McCandless actively sought a heightening of his “intellectual, aesthetic, and spiritual capabilities” (Cafaro 2004).  Finally, in light of the fact that McCandless fulfilled Thoreau’s general desire for individual awakening and improvement, Thoreau would not attempt to critique the ways in which McCandless failed or deviated from the Walden guidebook for living in the wild because “in the end, Thoreau insists that your particular path is up to you” (Cafaro 2004).


Works Cited


Watkins, Robert. "Opting Out: The Fantasy of Liberal Independence in Into the Wild"  AllAcademicInc.  19 March, 2009.  1-28.  Web.  17 April, 2010. http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p317360_index.html


Krakauer, Jon.  Into the Wild.  New York: Random House, 1996.  Print.


Thoreau, Henry David.  Walden.  New York: Barnes and Noble Classics, 2005.  Print.


Lauter, Paul.  “Thoreau’s Prophetic Testimony.”  JSTOR.  4:1, 1962.  111-123.  http://www.jstor.org/stable/25086954


Cafaro, Phillip.  Thoreau’s Living Ethics: Walden and the Pursuit of Virtue.  Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2004.  Kindle book.

1 comment:

  1. you have written very well, brilliant!!
    by the way....
    which school did you go to in atlanta?

    ReplyDelete