Different ways to live and understand life Comparison of Walden and Winesburg Ohio
Different Ways to Understand and Live Life Humanities 106-001 11/05/02 Midterm paper In both Walden and Winesburg, Ohio visions of what life is or ought to be are present. Walden is about the experiences of its author while he lived away from society. Winesburg is a collection of short stories about the lives of people living in the town of Winesburg. Henry David Thoreau is the author of Walden and Sherwood Anderson is the author of Winesburg, Ohio. Thoreau and Anderson had different influences, Thoreau was a transcendentalist and Anderson was influenced by Freud and modernism. Both books have a different conception of “the self” in relation to the physical environment, the social environment (society), and what lies beyond, in heaven or in ideas about God. Three chapters from Walden that these concepts can be seen in are “The Ponds,” “The Village,” and “Higher Laws. ... He looks at life from his own standpoint and although he separates himself from society, he still respects it. Anderson uses the characters in his book to show that although they seem one way to the public eye, they have different stories and feelings inside of them. Anderson shows that judgments about people are often wrong because we do not go the extra mile to understand them. ... This is the thought that influenced Thoreau throughout his writing of Walden. Thoreau intuited that there is a universal truth to life and that there is an over soul that connects all living things. ... Thoreau concentrated on the natural things in life and did not agree with artificial things, such as the railroad. Anderson took a different approach in that his book is filled with different characters, but they are all connected in different ways. Anderson’s vision of life differs in that he wants people to understand that people are not always how they seem and that we should not judge a book by its cover. ... They may look at him and see a dirty old man that just drinks all the time, but people do not stop and think about what happened in his life that led him to the position he is in. There are many people like this in Winesburg and they do not just involve negative views about a person. ... 220, Walden). ... He sees society as to hung up on meaningless things and thus they miss out on the finer, simpler things in life. ... 229, Walden). ... 230, Walden). ... -to earn their Walden by the turning of a cock or drawing of a plug! ... In Andersons book, The physical environment plays a different role in the characters lives. For example, in “Drink” Tom Foster cam to live in Winesburg from Cincinnati, he came to live with his grandmother. ... 212,Winesburg). ... 212,Winesburg). ... His exposure to these things made him feel as though he had experienced enough and he wanted to experience new things in his life. ... He experienced life from within. ... The people of the village look to other peoples lives for fulfillment and do not live their own. ... ” In this story Elmer Cowley is the son of Ebenezer Cowley, who owns Cowley & Son’s store in Winesburg. ... 194 of Winesburg Anderson writes “George Willard, he (Elmer) felt, belonged to the town, typified the town, represented in his person the spirit of the town….Did he not represent public opinion and had not the public opinion of Winesburg condemned the Cowleys to queerness? ... Elmer is jealous of this because he has been in Winesburg for a year and still has not made any friends. ... He comes to Winesburg and becomes famous for his ability to pick berries rapidly because of his hands. Before he came to Winesburg he used to be a teacher that really got through to his students. ... He could not understand this and instead of trying to teach again he secludes himself from everyone else.