Walden

In addition to being a well-lauded American lecturer, poet, and essayist, Ralph Waldo Emerson was widely known as the father of Transcendentalism. After meeting in 1837, Emerson became Thoreau’s spiritual and philosophical mentor, promoting a doctrine of simple living and self-reliance. It is worth noting that Thoreau had a great deal of help from Emerson when pursuing his self-reliant life on Walden Pond. Emerson provided many of the ideas that influenced Thoreau, and he owned the land upon which Thoreau built his Walden Pond home. 

Though Emerson and Thoreau possessed many of the same Transcendentalist beliefs, they differed in their approaches to sharing them. While Thoreau generally lived a private, solitary existence, Emerson was a prominent public figure who embarked on worldwide lecture tours. This difference in lifestyle was the subject of frequent debate between these contemporaries. In Walden, the reader can detect some of Thoreau’s tension toward Emerson by his failure to mention Emerson by name or disclose the latter’s ownership of the Walden Pond land. When Emerson does briefly appear in the text, Thoreau addresses him as an abstraction more than a person, referring to him as the “Old Immortal.”

Alex Therien is a French-Canadian woodsman who lives near Thoreau’s home on Walden Pond. Though Therien never received a formal education—and is functionally illiterate—Thoreau admires his close relationship with the natural world and the unique kind of intelligence this gives him. Of Therien, he writes, “there might be men of genius in the lowest grades of life […] who are as bottomless even as Walden Pond was thought to be, though they may be dark and muddy” (258).

John Field is a poor laborer and recent Irish immigrant. He lives in a hut with his wife and children near Baker Farm, an estate Thoreau originally considered purchasing. Thoreau encounters Field when he seeks shelter from a winter storm during one of his walks. He retreats into Field’s hut, initially believing it to be abandoned.

Thoreau somewhat patronizingly uses Field as an example of a hard-working man who is nevertheless doomed to poverty. Thoreau believes that Field will never gain satisfaction in life because he covets luxuries and material goods. He lectures Field on his values, assuming a moral and educational high ground. This conversation serves as a reminder that, despite his best intentions, Thoreau possesses certain blind spots regarding his own privileged background. His views also reflect prejudicial perspectives of Irish immigrants that were commonly held in the 1840s.

Amos Bronson Alcott—father of Little Women author Louisa May Alcott—is one of the few close friends who visit Thoreau. While Thoreau does not refer to Alcott by name, scholars have identified him as “the philosopher” to whom Thoreau speaks.

Alcott was a well-loved 19th-century scholar, teacher, and social reformer, known for founding the progressive Temple School in Boston. Like Thoreau, he was associated with the Transcendentalists and espoused many Transcendentalist ideas in his own writing. He also helped establish a number of Walden-like utopian communities, including Brook Farm and Fruitlands.

William Ellery Channing is “the poet” who visits Thoreau (along with “the philosopher” and the “Old Immortal”). A fellow poet and Transcendentalist, Channing was Thoreau’s closet friend. He was notably named after his uncle, a renowned Unitarian preacher and theologian.

Confucius is one of the ancient philosophers Thoreau most frequently alludes to in Walden. Confucius was a Chinese sage in the sixth century BC, best known as the father of a philosophy called Confucianism. Along with Confucius’s parables, this group significantly influenced the development of numerous Chinese governments.

In his writings, Confucius emphasized the importance of sincerity, personal morality, and deep study of the classics. In this sense, his philosophies served as a precursor for Walden and Transcendentalism overall.