Walden emphasizes the importance of self-reliance, solitude, contemplation, and closeness to nature in transcending the crass existence that is supposedly the lot of most humans. The book is neither a novel nor a true autobiography, but combines these genres with a social critique of contemporary Western culture’s consumerist and materialist attitudes and its distance from and destruction of nature. That the book is not simply a criticism of society, but also an attempt to engage creatively with the better aspects of contemporary culture is suggested both by his proximity to Concord society but his admiration for classical literature. There are signs of ambiguity, or an attempt to see an alternative side of something common — the sound of a passing locomotive, for example, is compared to natural sounds.

A reproduction of Thoreau’s cabin with a statue of ThoreauWalden is believed to have been inspired by American Transcendentalism, a philosophy developed by Thoreau’s friend and spiritual mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson owned the land on which Thoreau built his cabin at Walden Pond, and Thoreau used to walk over to Emerson’s house for a meal and a conversation.

Thoreau regarded his sojourn at Walden as a noble experiment with a threefold purpose. First, he was escaping the dehumanizing effects of the Industrial Revolution by returning to a simpler, agrarian lifestyle. Second, he was simplifying his life and reducing his expenditures, increasing the amount of leisure time in which he could work on his writings (most of A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers was written at Walden). Third, and most important, Thoreau was putting into practice the Transcendentalist belief that one can best transcend normality and experience the Ideal, or the Divine, through nature.

It should come as no surprise that Walden is now an icon for environmentalists, and a touchstone for Americans seeking to “get in touch with nature.”