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   lit24 Teacher
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   The title of the second chapter of Thoreau's "Walden Pond" is "Where I lived and What I lived for." In this chapter Thoreau tells us plainly why he went to live in the woods:

   "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came  to die, to discover that I had not lived."

   In this chapter he talks about how he once considered buying the Hollowell farm for himself but the purchase fell through. Instead, he created a new existence for himself at Walden, where he found joy and fulfillment in nature, truly awakening in his mornings there, while most of society remains perpetually asleep, living mean lives when the possibility of a much better life is possible. The key to achieving such a life, he says, is simplicity.

   One very striking revelation he has in the woods is his intuitive understanding and sudden discovery of his closeness to Nature. By residing in a house in the woods near the Walden pond Thoreau has a mystical revelation that he has almost become one with Nature:

   "I found myself suddenly neighbor to the birds; not by having imprisoned one, but having caged myself near them."

   Thoreau's realizes and enjoys this enlightened moment consequent to  the inversion of  the role and situation of man and bird.

   Sources:

   http://www.enotes.com/walden/characters

   http://www.enotes.com/walden/essays-criticism

   http://www.enotes.com/walden/themes

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   Posted by lit24 on Friday September 25, 2009 at 8:10 PM