Nature, Necessity, and the Philosophy of Metaphor in Walden

Abstract

This essay argues that the prose style of Walden – and the use of metaphor in particular – is a literary mechanism for considering one of Thoreau’s chief philosophical concerns: the idea of necessity. The formal aspects of Thoreau’s prose in Walden are closely linked with his repudiation of this philosophical category. This essay begins by explaining modern formulations of the idea of “necessity” by reference to the work of John Locke, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant, who were seminal figures during Thoreau’s early education at Harvard and his subsequent intellectual development. Kant’s philosophy inaugurates a way of thinking that Thoreau adapts as a means for challenging the unquestioned, collective habits and assumptions of his contemporaries. By further developing Kant’s challenge to the moral and social implications of the idea of necessity, Thoreau constructs a philosophical justification for his reformist call to recast the shape of society. Yet Thoreau’s prose style conveys an even more radical philo-sophical position than Kant’s break from Locke and Hume. This essay argues that Thoreau’s use of metaphor recuperates a method for knowing and experiencing the world that he insists has been lost within the collective assumptions and economic demands of an industrializing society.