Walden – Henry David Thoreau

1. Why Thoreau left Walden?

Thoreau makes it very clear at the opening of Walden that his stay in the wilderness was not a lifestyle choice but rather a temporary experiment, and that “At present I am a sojourner in civilized life again.“
One widespread misunderstanding of Thoreau is that he was a critic of modernity who failed in his plan to live a more authentic life on his own. But, in fact, Thoreau insists on telling us that his Walden project is not a life decision or a commitment to a set of ideals, but an experiment in alternative living that is unambiguously amateurish. It is more like casual play than like solemn ideology. This informality explains why, when he leaves Walden Pond in 1847, Thoreau does not admit failure; rather, he says simply that he has other lives to live. Thoreau was more of an Emersonian transcendentalist than he was a socialist: the soul mattered more to him than sociology. He was not as interested in being a model farmer as in showing how the soul could benefit from a change of scenery and occupation. Having learned the lessons that Walden Pond had to offer him, he turned to other scenes and other occupations, thus proving rather than undercutting his philosophy of life.

2. The Character of Nick Carraway

If Gatsby represents one part of Fitzgerald’s personality, the flashy celebrity who pursued and glorified wealth in order to impress the woman he loved, then Nick represents another part: the quiet, reflective Midwesterner adrift in the lurid (jeziv) East. A young man (he turns thirty during the course of the novel) from Minnesota, Nick travels to New York in 1922 to learn the bond business. He lives in the West Egg district of Long Island, next door to Gatsby. Nick is also Daisy’s cousin, which enables him to observe and assist the resurgent (ponovo oživljavati) love affair between Daisy and Gatsby. As a result of his relationship to these two characters, Nick is the perfect choice to narrate the novel, which functions as a personal memoir (bilješka) of his experiences with Gatsby in the summer of 1922.
Nick is also well suited to narrating The Great Gatsby because of his temperament. As he tells the reader in Chapter 1, he is tolerant, open-minded, quiet, and a good listener, and, as a result, others tend to talk to him and tell him their secrets. Gatsby, in particular, comes to trust him and treat him as a confidant. Nick generally assumes a secondary role throughout the novel, preferring to describe and comment on events rather than dominate the action. Often, however, he functions as Fitzgerald’s voice, as in his extended meditation on time and the American dream at the end of Chapter 9.
Insofar (toliko) as Nick plays a role inside the narrative, he evidences a strongly mixed reaction to life on the East Coast, one that creates a powerful internal conflict that he does not resolve until the end of the book. On the one hand, Nick is attracted to the fast-paced, fun-driven lifestyle of New York. On the other hand, he finds that lifestyle grotesque and damaging. This inner conflict is symbolized throughout the book by Nick’s romantic affair with Jordan Baker. He is attracted to her vivacity (živahnost) and her sophistication just as he is repelled by her dishonesty and her lack of consideration for other people.