"Economy"

"Economy"

1. Purpose

   • The novel was constructed as a response to public inquiries on Thoreau's experience living at Walden.
   • The experiment was conducted as a way to escape succumbing to the lives of the men around Thoreau.
     • Laborers who inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, farming tools, etc. were "digging graves as soon as they are born," suggesting that Thoreau frowned upon blind obedience to societal jobs/living.
   • Discover what are the "true necessaries and means of life."
     • This is not to return to the ways of our ancestors but to more reevaluate our lives.
     • Food, shelter, clothing, and fuel, to a certain extent that is not extreme (such as fire, which can sometimes be considered a luxury.)
       • Simple tools such as a knife or ax or studious materials rank next to necessaries.
   • Thoreau is writing for those who are discontented with the hardness of their lives, ones who complain because they are constantly working, and those who are misusing their wealth.

2. Main points

   • The chapter discusses money, working conditions, the poor, and economy overall despite the experiment being centered around a life lived without reliance on money.
   • Criticizing the ways of life prevalent in his society.
   • Humans are too occupied with work that life is not appreciated fully. They cannot forge relations with another as it would get in the way of their constant labor.
   • Humans cannot succumb to old ways of thinking; old deeds for old people, new deeds for new.

3. Devices used

   • Hyperbole
     • Compares the labor of his neighbors to the twelve labors of Hercules.
     • Thoreau implies that our own opinions of ourselves are worse than being enslaved in the North or South.
   • Allusion
     • References Iolaus, Hercules' brother who aided him in slaying the Hydra's head. He alludes to this to prove that Thoreau's neighbors do not have a figure like Iolaus, thus more jobs appearing whenever one is completed.

4. Lifestyle