Questions to Guide Your Reading

Philip Hallie, In the Eye of the Hurricane, "Thoreau's Walk on the Wild Side"

1. Prior to this reading, you were given another reading from Philip Hallie's book In the Eye of the Hurricane, a reading that dealt with a man named Joshua James.  How does Henry David Thoreau's attitude toward the tragedies along the Massachusetts coastline differ from that of Joshua James?  (You may want to wait until you've finished the entire selection before attempting to answer this question.)

2. What was Thoreau's reaction to the corpse of the young woman who had been killed in the sinking of the St. John whose body was sitting upright offshore "with her white cap blown back from her head"?

3. Toward the end of the section entitled "Spring" in his book Walden, Thoreau had written, "We can never have enough of Nature."  What is it, according to Thoreau, that "refreshes" us about Nature?  How is Thoreau's view characteristic of the nineteenth-century understanding of the "sublime"?  (In your answer, please be sure to mention the essay by Edmund Burke on the sublime and the paintings of J. M. W. Turner.  These two can be found later in the selection.)

4. Does Thoreau have a "sentimental" view of Nature?  What is his view of compassion?  As Hallie points out several pages later (pp. 121f.), Thoreau often uses the word "sympathy."  To what is he referring when he uses that word.

5. According to Hallie, "Thoreau the saunterer took off every day to save his soul ...."  How did Thoreau set out to do this?  What sorts of things were inimical to his life pursuits?

6. What do you think of Thoreau's view of life?  Does it appeal to you?  Why or why not?

7. According to Hallie, what is odd about Thoreau's practice of writing thousands of words, given his particular conception of Nature?

8. In what setting did Thoreau say he felt almost invariably cheap and dissipated," his life "unspeakably mean"?  Where, on the other hand, would he "come to himself," and feel himself once more "grandly related"?

9. What is Thoreau's attitude toward the "charity huts" that had been set up along the Massachusetts coast to help sailors from shipwrecks? 

10. Having now finished reading Hallie's description of Thoreau's attitude toward Nature, the world, and his fellow human beings, consider this: Is this attitude the result of any logical demonstration?  Is his attitude "scientific" in any serious sense?  Consider also: Is Thoreau's attitude toward the world a perspective he derives from the world, or is it something he imposes on the world when he looks at it?

11. Let's say that Joshua James and Henry David Thoreau were to meet, and James wanted to convince Thoreau to join his crew of life savers.  Let's propose, furthermore, that Thoreau refuses because he thinks it "useless" and a worthless sort of compassion.  Would it be possible for Joshua James to demonstrate to Thoreau that his view of the world was too narrow and his view of human dignity too miserable?  If so, how?  Would science help?  Why or why not?  How about politics? 

12. Which view of the world do you consider to be more true, the one held by Joshua James and his men or the one held by Thoreau and his like-minded admirers?

13. Last question: If you answered the question above by saying either (a) that you considered Thoreau's view of the world to be more true, or (b) that both views were equally valid, then consider this: Whose actions do you consider more admirable?  Which of the two men would you rather be like?  (You can, of course, give any answer you like, but if you answer that you consider Thoreau's view of the world to be more true and yet prefer the actions of Joshua James, how do you reconcile the seeming contradiction?  The same is true if you hold the reverse.  If you admire Joshua James's view of the world, but you know you would have reacted as did Thoreau, how do you reconcile the seeming contradiction? )