Summary and Annotation of Literature: Thoreau’s Synthesizing Metaphor
“Thoreau’s Synthesizing Metaphor,” the author James A. Hamby explains the interpretation of metaphor that used in Henry David Thoreau literatures. Through out his works, Thoreau never halted to emphasize on the importance and the essence of life in connecting human beings to our nature, which is referred as “man-and-the-land relationships”. In one of his literature Walden, he united two antithetic terms “natural” and “pertinent” in demonstrating that his life is logical, reasonable yet natural and free, which the author thinks the way of adopting these two words showed Thoreau’s sweeping scope of concerns. In the chapter “Economy”, it demonstrates his famous moral castigation with pragmatic substantiation by saying “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Thoreau believes that the monomaniacal pursuit of wealth, success and those superfluities has paradoxically disparaged the lives of those engaged in it, which further making them unable to appreciate the simple pleasures. The author mentioned that Thoreau explicitly stated his view of living by using the metaphor a plant for symbolizing growth, which refereed to the internal organizing principles in life, such as self-improvement of a well being and a reasonable natural act that forms the thematic content of his work. Consistent with the growth metaphor, the author points that the work Walden is structure as organic development that presents the evolution of an acorn into an oak tree and of a larva into a butterfly which symbolizes the continuous process of life yet each stage is different. Thoreau believes that an individual’s chief end of life is to aspire to its ultimate without bogged down in the failures and difficulties, which shows Thoreau’s anti-collectivism and pro-individualism tradition. Thoreau’s attempt to bridge the gap between rational and suprarational by showing his contradict views between his transcendentalism and his pragmatic, practical criteria of existence. Since Thoreau considered unalloyed transcendentalism is too mystical and unalloyed pantherism is a misdirection of earth worship, he made an analogy between chlorophyll and the divine that embedded in human to demonstrate the best approach of self-improvement is to involve the surpassing of our degenerate state, which is a process similar to photosynthesis. The author mentioned that the development of synthesizing metaphor largely covers throughout each chapter of Walden. For example, in the “Economy”, the image of plant is showed both downward growth from it roots and upward growth from its stem, it epitomized that individuals should not devote themselves to labor beyond necessity, which is their roots, but should cultivate their thoughts and appreciations, which are their stem and flower. The author thinks that Thoreau carried the reader by the means of metaphor, in order to understand his attitude towards man’s potential. In the chapter winter and spring, represent the different stages of achievement. During winter, dormant time of the pond, Thoreau has a sense of anticipation in winter and is eager to rebirth in spring with using the metaphor “an influx of light (that) filled my house” representing the arrival of spring. In the final chapter of Walden, the author thinks Thoreau became ecstatic over his triumph, expounding philosophical maxims such as “Be a Clumbus to whole new continents and worlds within you” He reminded us that it is in our mind, through the nature of the man, that self-improvement is actualized, which he used a metaphor “The life in us is like the water in the river.”
Thoreau successfully conveyed his message through the synthesizing of his metaphor that reminding us to live optimistic, strive for self-realization with continuous reflection and connection from the nature. Actually, Thoreau is neither a practical advocator nor an erudite philosopher, but a mixture of both, that embraces the existence of daily matters and questions the real meaning and purpose. Henry David Thoreau is a mirror of ourselves; he adopts the philosophy of nature to encourage us thriving in life and achieving the level of self-realization.
