Thoreau's Synthesizing Metaphor: Two Fishes With One Hook

THOREAU'S SYNTHESIZING METAPHOR: TWO HSHES WITH ONE HOOK James A. Hamby Although some studies have been done concerning Henry David Thoreau's craftsmanship, emphasis is not generally placed on the relationship between Waidens art and Waidens philosophy. Despite its practical application to such diverse contemporary phenomena as nonviolent resistance and communal organization, Waiden speaks to us not merely because it affirms the ultimate in man-and-tiie-land relationships but because its artistic unity also demonstrates how we truly can transcend lives of quiet desperation. This transcendence develops through Walden's internal organizing structure of metaphor, and is extended to the point that metaphor becomes philosophic system. Thus Thoreau doubly demonstrates that we can, within ourselves, overcome the perpetual struggle between self and society, that we can emerge from the particular and die finite to the universal and the infinite. Despite the apparently rambling nature of Thoreau's prose, Walden's introductory chapter, "Economy," demonstrates economy of expression. Thoreau 's first statement concerning his mode of life refutes the criticism tiiat he is impertinent and states radier tiiat his life-style is "very natural and pertinent ." His uniting the words natural and pertinent has far-reaching implications . Natural suggests the innate, the instinctively moral, the free, the uninhibited , while pertinent suggests the logical, the suitable, the reasonable. It seems to be a rather ambitious comment for one to claim that his life is both logical or reasonable and, at the same time, natural or free. Thoreau's fusion of two such generally antithetic terms anticipates the sweeping scope of his concerns. The pragmatic orientation of Thoreau's philosophy also asserts itself in the opening essay: "No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof." One of the primary purposes of the exposition in "Economy" is to prepare the reader for what is to follow, and Thoreau prepares the mass of men by pointing out that, pragmatically, they lead lives of "quiet desperation ." Accordingly, he follows this famous moral castigation with pragmatic substantiation, indicating that it is not natural or reasonable that man commit himself to the inherent cyclical decay involved in trying to obtain superfluities beyond the "necessary." Rather, man should . . . adventure on life now, his vacation from humbler toil having commenced. The soil, it appears, is suited to the seed, for it has sent its radicle downward, and it may now send its shoot upward also with confidence. Why has man rooted himself thus firmly in the earth, but that he may rise in the same proportion into the heavens above?—for the nobler plants are valued for the fruit they bear at last in the air and light, far from the ground, (pp. 24-25J1 1ThIs and all subsequent page references are to Henry David Thoreau, Waiden or Life in the Woods (New York: The Heritage Press, 1939). 17 18RMMLA BulletinMarch 1973 In stating very expliciüy his view of living, Thoreau also demonstrates his stmctural vehicle for Waiden. The metaphor of growth, symbolized by a plant, constitutes the internal organizing principle; the self-improvement of man, a reasonable and potentially natural act, forms the thematic content. Consistent with the growth metaphor, Waiden is structured as organic development . The evolution of an acorn into an oak tree and of a larva into a butterfly is one continuous process, yet differences are apparent at the various stages of growth. Earlier sections of Waiden mix metaphor and expository statement as Thoreau develops in his readers a sense of the metaphor; later sections are virtually pure metaphor, drenched with symbolic connotations and associations, much as Thoreau drenches himself in Waiden Pond. Thus, metaphor eventually becomes philosophic construct. Thoreau builds on the premise that man's chief end in life is to aspire to his ultimate, to realize his full potential as an individual, and to avoid becoming bogged down in the quagmire of cultural conformity. Thoreau is thus firmly embedded in tiie anti-collectivism, pro-individualism tradition. This optimistic view of man's abilities evinces Thoreau's transcendentalism, which he effects through an alliance with nature. Such an inherentiy mystical way of life would seem to contradict Thoreau's pragmatic and practical criteria of existence. This...