Henry Thoreau's Walden is often classified as a philosophical autobiography recounting his two-year experience living in a woods outside of Concord, Massachusetts. Residing in a small cabin overlooking Walden Pond, Thoreau spent his days observing nature, meeting travelers, baking bread, and planting seeds. The importance of Walden lies in Thoreau's unique philosophical perspective and connection with Nature. When Thoreau wasn't visiting, he was walking in the woods, analyzing what people called progress. At the time, the very young country was experiencing growing pains, expanding into a trading empire that annoyed Thoreau. He did not like seeing his countrymen enslaved through an illusory conquest of material gain. This type of industrial progress, according to Thoreau, led “a mass of men to lead lives of silent desperation” (6). Thoreau wanted to escape this scene, divest himself of material things and live a humble existence. For him, the acquisition of material objects served as a corruptor, polluting humanity and acting as a barrier to the beauty of the natural world. He did not want to “live what was not life” (85). In his own words, Thoreau wrote that he went into the woods “to live deliberately, to face the only essential facts of life and learn what it had to teach, so that after death he would not find that he had not lived” (85) . Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Such profound thoughts seem perfect for an autobiography. Of the genre classification for Walden, Markus Poetzsch writes: "Indeed, to the extent that Walden, at its textual center, is not simply the narrative of a pond but of Thoreau's life by the pond, it is vital and irreducibly autobiographical" ( 2). J. Lyndon Shanley argues that Walden is actually a combination of three genres: "a chronicle, a topical essay, and a persuasive argument" (1). Furthermore, the work could be placed in the philosophical genre, because, in some sections, it has the same didactic tone as Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay “Nature”, which went into detail about the beliefs of Transcendentalism. Although Thoreau takes a similar tone in his work, the entire experience at Walden Pond does not seem to fit the didactic, sermonizing effect that Emerson was seeking in his essay. Even calling the work pure philosophy is an awkward designation because of Thoreau's intimate descriptions of Nature as he strolls through the shady woods of Concord. Traditional philosophy, such as that written by the Greeks, focuses on logic, argumentation, and dialectics. Plato, when writing the dialogues of his former teacher, Socrates, is emotionally detached from the experience, offering little or no feeling for the scenes rendered by the dialogue. Thoreau, on the other hand, romanticizes what he sees and hears. Here, in Walden, the message is personal and attempts to dialogue with the reader. If Thoreau's Walden fails to be a true autobiography and contains too much emotion to be merely a work of internal philosophy, then what is it? Unknowingly, Thoreau's work was the precursor of a new genre: creative nonfiction. The personal and creative connection that Thoreau attributes to his sojourn in the woods is highly stylized in his prose and seems like fiction even though it is not. Thoreau's masterpiece is filled with symbolism, poetry, and overarching themes that transcend what could have only been a two-dimensional autobiography about life far from humanity's shaky progress. Thoreau does not express himself in a detached and scientific manner, describing the natural world as ifwas a romantic landscape portrait full of vibrant colors, proving himself a poetic philosopher with the gift of creating a full-bodied narrative; However, even with these qualities there are some questions about how true Thoreau's experience was and whether the story is closer to a fictional memoir instead of a factual account. These are questions that the reader could ask himself and that he will be able to understand by observing the conventions of this new genre. That said, it seems that Thoreau's reliability and motivations regarding his experience at Walden Pond are questionable: why did he write Walden and what was his purpose? At several points in the narrative, Thoreau's attack on everyday life can be off-putting, affecting the reader's sympathy for the narrator, which can be detrimental to the success of a work of creative nonfiction. In addressing these concerns, with respect to the genre, it is possible to see that the work has its flaws, but is similar in spirit to the fourth genre. The genre of creative nonfiction is still relatively young compared to the amount of scholarship and analysis. devoted to fiction or poetry; however, its infancy in the vast landscape of the printed word does not mean that there are few works to read. In fact, the genre has accompanied readers for hundreds of years. Lee Gutkind, editor of Creative Nonfiction Magazine, doesn't know exactly who coined the genre's name. His best memory of when the genre became official was in 1983, at a meeting held by the National Endowment for the Arts. They tried to decide what to call the genre “as a category” for their scholarship (creative nonfiction). Until then, the genre had unofficially remained without a distinctive name to separate itself from regular nonfiction. What, then, is the difference between nonfiction and creative nonfiction? The answer to this question is simply that the fourth genre shares elements of both fiction and nonfiction. This response would suggest, in some terms, an error in literary physics: how can a work share contrasting elements without becoming one or the other in its creation? The truth is simply this: Creative nonfiction, like nonfiction, shares the biographical aspect, but unlike its ancestor, it is written using fictional storytelling techniques. In this way, creative nonfiction authors tell their narratives with the accuracy of an autobiographer, but the revelation of facts does not occur in a formal, linear style. Instead, the author uses fictional devices, such as symbolism, character development, plot manipulation, irony, and dialogue to accentuate events. The genre-crossing effect produces a new entity written with both the honesty of nonfiction and the informality of fiction, giving rise to a genre “that depends less on hermetic reasoning than on style and personality” (Lopate xxiv ). This “style and personality” mentioned by Phillip Lopate (himself a practitioner of the genre), exists in many forms ranging from the personal essay to new journalism and memoir. Even travel writing or gastronomic writing can be considered members of the same family. The fundamental conventions of the genre are the personality of the author and his honesty with the facts. The author of a work of creative nonfiction is the subject who looks at the world. This means that the author writes from the first-person perspective, using “I” instead of the limited or omniscient third person. Preferring first person over third raises the age-old debate about the reliability of the first-person narrator and the loss of objectivity that is essential to nonfiction and journalism; however, those who argue against the “I” miss the point of hismeaning for the creative nonfiction writer: the narrative must be personal, intimate (Lopate xxi). The experience is filtered directly through the author's perception of events. Thoreau emphasizes the use of the first person at the beginning of Walden: “In most books, the I, or first person, is omitted; in this it will be maintained….I wouldn't talk so much about myself if there was also someone else I know. Unfortunately I am limited to this topic by the narrowness of my experience” (3). The “narrowness of experience” is the author's ability to compress time in the most important scenes of the narrative. Feelings and thoughts about a person, time, or place are of the utmost importance to the author because, in essence, these are the qualities that make his or her narrative personal. The cold, detached nature of a newspaper article, or a third-person biography, lacks the colorful charm of direct experience. Using the first person allows the author to play up scenes with overarching themes, leading to life-changing epiphanies brought on by the event, which can be quite challenging for the inexperienced writer. Developing these ideas sometimes requires a lot of reflection or personal growth. To write in this genre effectively, personal essayist and creative nonfiction author Vivian Gornick believes that the writer must “convince the reader that he has some wisdom and that he is writing as honestly as possible to get to what he knows. Furthermore, the writer of the personal narrative must also persuade the reader that the narrative is reliable” (14). Since Walden is a possible prototype of creative nonfiction, the reader might question the reliability of Thoreau's perspective of life in the woods. . Since so much time has passed, readers have a historical background to dispel any doubts. According to an article in the Benét Reader's Encyclopedia, “Thoreau built a cabin on Walden Pond, on land owned by Emerson. He lived there two years, two months and two days” (1022). Out of sheer curiosity, a replica of the original cabin sits within sight of the famous blue pond. Not too far away stands a statue of Thoreau himself, gazing into the distance. Other historical facts are that he was imprisoned for failing to pay a tax to support the Mexican War. He was an editor of a transcendental publication, The Dial, and was a friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1022). He graduated from Harvard and attempted to become a teacher, but found the occupation unfulfilling. Considering all of these historical facts can provide the reader with background on Thoreau's actions as a transcendental pacifist unable to find an occupation or society suitable enough to support his philosophies; yet these memories of the past say very little about what the man thought and what he felt. Only Thoreau can actualize that inner reflection and give life to his thoughts. All of his character's outward actions are supported by his reflections on life, nature and humanity. Thoreau invites readers to go with him into the woods, so that they can also glimpse the experience he had at Walden Pond. If Thoreau can be considered a creative nonfiction writer, then his job as a narrator is to write the experience well enough so that the reader can trust him. His thoughtfully intricate thoughts on the direction society was going, along with his elaborate descriptions of life on Walden Pond, support the historical facts. However, there may be some uncertainty as to how much of his life in Walden actually happened. There is no way to explain every detail of Nature as described by his pen. All that remains is the adoption of some conventions of the nonfiction genrecreative to explore where exactly Walden falls. The adventure begins quite believably. The lens focuses on a walking Thoreau, as he plans an experiment that will isolate him from the modernity of a rapidly expanding America. All the while, he makes cool but astute observations about the essentials and nonessentials of life. The first chapter is entitled “Economy”. This is where Gornick's analysis of gender comes into play. He writes that “every literary work has both a situation and a story. The situation is the context or circumstance, sometimes the plot; the story is the emotional experience that concerns the writer: the intuition, the wisdom, the thing one has to say” (13). For Thoreau's narrative, the situation is the need to escape, to find refuge from the so-called progress that chains humanity to unfulfilling lives of hard work and superficial society; the story is the experience of living two years in a humble and materially free existence and the spiritual relationship that humanity has with Nature. At the beginning of the piece, Thoreau is busy plotting the details of his plan to go to Walden, listing some expenses. Along the way he reveals much to the reader about his disenchantment with the condition of his fellow men: “Most men, even in this comparatively free country, are through mere ignorance and error so occupied with the fictitious cares and superfluously gross toils of life that its finest fruits cannot be plucked by them” (6). Thoreau believes that his countrymen have enslaved themselves through their occupational efforts. The industry is a vile and sick man-made mechanism, draining life through fleeting gains that amount to a meaningless existence of blind competition. The first chapter of Thoreau's work is prophetic considering the evolution of the same issues in the 21st century. People become so obsessed with their careers that they sacrifice all their time climbing the proverbial corporate ladder, hoping to reach the top and believing there is no other choice. Either work or die. Buy the beautiful luxury home, have kids, and continue the same age-old tradition of keeping up with the Joneses. For Thoreau, much of this slavery comes from the possessions that people own. The more a person has, the harder he or she has to work to maintain it. Thoreau proclaims that “most of the luxuries and many of the so-called conveniences of life are not only not indispensable, but are positive obstacles to the elevation of humanity” (13). After taking leave of the economic plight of civilized society, Thoreau ventures to Walden Pond, where the story begins. Thoreau's goal is clearly stated: "My object in going to Walden Pond was not to live there cheaply or dearly, but to transact some business with the least obstacle" (18). The situation in the “Economy” chapter acts like an extended thesis that Thoreau wishes to prove. By freeing himself from the luxuries that anchor people to a life of toil and misery, Thoreau can make his thesis a reality. He believes he has discovered the path to happiness and wishes to spread the information to the reader. There were many places Thoreau could have chosen instead of Walden Pond to conduct his experiment: a desert, a cave, or even an island. But Walden Pond, creatively, has a magical and almost poetic quality. In reality, it is not the postcard pond destined to attract a multitude of visitors just for its appearance. Yet it is appropriate for Thoreau's purposes. It has a charming organic simplicity that invites creative representation. Thoreau, who obviously possesses an analytical mind, could have gone to Walden Pond and described exactly what he saw in a scientific manner. After all,the opening chapter is indicative of a pragmatic narrator, who even calculates all his expenses to the tune of almost half a cent. By itself, the “Economy” chapter is not really a good representation of creative nonfiction because there is little action and much of it is judgmental. “Obviously, Thoreau holds himself and his intellect in considerably higher esteem than he holds most of his colleagues” (Brooker 2). Thoreau, with good intentions in his thoughts, is condescending in his speech. In particular, his view on the elderly: «In practice, the old have not very important advice to give to the young, their experience has been so impartial, and their lives such miserable failures» (8). The elders' harsh and contemptuous criticism is a purely one-sided generalization that slightly damages the reader's sympathy for Thoreau. Its unsympathetic tone reveals itself immediately from the beginning, which may make it difficult for the common reader to invest the time to walk along Thoreau's path. Thoreau redeems himself when he was at Walden Pond, but it takes a while to get used to his personality. In an essay titled “Thoreau's Development in Walden,” Paul Schwaber suggests that while Thoreau's behavior may be off-putting, there is still much to like about him. “At the beginning of the book, Thoreau speaks as a man apart, yet, as the very act of writing and even his acerbic humor suggest, he is never entirely separated from some good feeling for his fellow men” (Schwaber 4 ). Moving away from humanity, the tone of Thoreau's voice lightens, as he is finally doing what he set out to do. The alteration of tone in the Walden Pond chapters may have had something to do with the numerous revisions Walden underwent before publication. His first publication A Week was a dismal failure, prompting the publisher, Munroe & Co., to completely forget his last manuscript even though there was an advertisement on the last page of the same work (Sayre 6). Thoreau's pre-Walden Pond publication was a written tribute to his late brother, John. The story is the account of a boat trip Thoreau took with his brother from Massachusetts to New Hampshire and back. Most likely, readers and publishers were put off by the digressions on religion and philosophy. After its completion, Thoreau had to raise his own money to publish it, leaving him with considerable debt. Thoreau did not want to repeat the same mistake he made with his previous publication, so Thoreau decided to continue revising his work. According to essayist Robert F. Sayre, Walden was written in seven different versions “not counting the last typographical copy made in 1854, and most of the additions were made after 1851” (7). The first versions of the work were full of scathing criticism and satire of progress; “Sitting in his simple cabin, the author exposed the falsehoods and delusions of the mass of men” (7). Most of the philosophical lashings that Thoreau directs at his fellow men are found in the first two parts, "Economy and Where I Lived and What I Lived For" (7). Thoreau's constant revisions made Walden a much more enjoyable read. American naturalist John Burroughs believes that the creative elements that Thoreau uses for aesthetic purposes in his narrative are “a contained extravagance of statement and a compressed exaggeration of metaphor. The hyperbole is big, but it is bold and sustained” (2). What Burroughs means here is that Thoreau's prose is theatrical but refined; he has complete control over his thoughts and none of them, read silently or aloud, are out of place because he describes the scene as if he were painting it overa canvas. There is also quite a bit of sentimentality in Thoreau's prose which is evident when he describes the pond in winter: “Every winter the quivering liquid surface of the pond, which was so sensitive to every breath, and reflected every light and shadow, it becomes solid to the depth of a foot and a half….Like the marmots on the surrounding hills, it closes its eyelids and becomes dormant for three months or more” (258). As a creative stylist Thoreau does a number of things here to embellish the scene of a frozen pond in this short short passage. The obvious one is the use of personification. Thoreau treats the pond as if it were a living entity that, “like marmots,” hibernates, closing its eyelids until spring awakens it again (258). The passage is also full of romantic sentimentality about the whole winter process. Before starting the day, Thoreau observes, “O prince, our eyes contemplate with admiration and convey to the soul the wonderful and varied spectacle of the universe” (258). Thoreau is attempting a balancing act: However, the opening lines of Nature's spoken resolution in this chapter are an example of the hyperbole mentioned by Burroughs. By carefully constructing the lines about the freezing of the pond, Thoreau is able to soften the prosaic crescendo by returning to an equally romantic idea, but on a much gentler, broad-style approach. Thoreau's musical approach to language is an example of the creative nonfiction element in Walden. For all practical purposes, Thoreau could have opted for a simple technical observation of the freezing pond, forgoing any attempt to sensationalize the experience. Burroughs is grateful that Thoreau kept the creative elements intact because without them “the record would have been much more boring. Take away all his exaggerations, all his inflation of bubbles, etc., and you will make a sad havoc in his pages” (4). Sensationalism in prose can sometimes be detrimental to a written work, but sensationalism is partly what Walden is about. And sometimes it can be his fault. Although a cursory inspection of Thoreau's work gives the reader no reason to doubt his reliability as a narrator; since however one might question his motives. Thoreau wanted people to read his vision; it was more than just a personal vision of life away from society or a sequel to Emerson's work. And generating interest in a product requires a bit of salesmanship. This can happen in a genre like creative nonfiction. The author feels the need to exploit a certain experience for his own satisfaction, whether for pecuniary or intellectual reasons. In an article titled “Giving the Game Away: Thoreau's Intellectual Imperialism and the Marketing of Walden Pond,” writer Ira Brooker accuses Thoreau of exploiting Walden Pond for his own “intellectual enrichment” (6). Taking Brooker's idea into consideration would damage the positioning of Thoreau's work as a piece of creative nonfiction because it suggests that he may have strayed from the truth, wounding his sincerity as a storyteller to gain recognition that betrays that indicated in his work. Brooker accuses Thoreau of writing a how-to book on wilderness survival and "selling the idea of ​​Walden to the masses" (6). Based on the number of times Thoreau rewrote Walden, the question of how much truth was sacrificed to make it more enjoyable is a valid one if the reader is to trust the essayistic element of the work. The question of authenticity and reliability is crucial. to a work of creative nonfiction because without it the writing becomes fictitious. The common saying about good fiction is that it contains an element of truth, but it is aproduct of the imagination; creative nonfiction, on the other hand, should be true. Genre writer Lee Gutkind believes that much of a narrative's reliability has to do with the writers' "ethical and moral boundaries and their willingness to achieve accuracy and credibility in their work" (xxii). His answer is that for a person not yet accustomed to the genre it seems unsatisfactory because the credibility of a work of creative nonfiction rests solely on the conscience of its creator. A narrator weaves a story, mixing truth and fiction for the purpose of entertainment. The biographer relies only on facts, ignoring any sort of stylistic flair for fear that it might get in the way of the truth. As Gutkind acknowledges, the line between fiction and nonfiction genres is blurred, but there are ways to combat the uncertainty (xx-xi). One way to ensure whether a piece is actually fact or fiction is to have a top-notch team of lawyers. inspect some aspects of a submitted work; Gutkind states that the magazine called Creative Nonfiction has a group of lawyers who review the work before publication (xxiii). Gutkind states, “Our editorial board had to work with lawyers to determine what could be said between a doctor and patients, which place names should legitimately be masked, and which places should be omitted” (4). Another way described by Gutkind is a historical overview of historical facts, documents and data to alleviate any doubts (xxiii). Unfortunately, despite all these methods, there can still be many doubts about what actually happened in any memoir, because much written work is subjective. And because of subjectivity, Gutkind's argument that much of a narrative's truth derives from the author's ethical stance is not such an outlandish claim. In contemporary times, with all the lawyers and factual investigations into details, it's much harder for poser creative nonfiction to get away with artificial narratives. Unfortunately for Thoreau, his publishers did not have an in-house team of lawyers to investigate the Walden Pond Odyssey from start to finish. It would have cost too much to do so, and there's nothing truly scandalous written in Walden. Thoreau wrote some unkind remarks about the daily work ritual of his fellow Americans and some visitors who wandered his street, but there is no malice in his tone toward any of these people. If anything his tone is sympathetic; he feels sorry that these people don't take the time to see how empty their lives are. Of course, it may be possible that Thoreau, as Brooker suggests, wrote Walden to make himself look good, exploit the environment for his own gain, and profit from guidance on how to live in the woods. Yet there are other interpretations of Thoreau's efforts that blatantly contradict this claim. His work has touched many thoughtful people. Anne Labastille, an ecologist, wrote that she did not appreciate Walden's writing until she was forty (53-57). She fell in love with the book after listening to it on an audio cassette while taking long trips to visit her dying mother. He later wrote, “It was Thoreau who inspired me to build a second little cabin twenty years after the first” (58). He built a second cabin, also detailing the cost as Thoreau did. Nearly two centuries later, this work still inspires and provokes debate among students, scholars, professors and ecologists. An interpretation does not ruin its credibility or what it set out to do. There is no record to show that Walden was aiming for any kind of gain while living in the woods. He could have made a profit in a period of six months instead of two years;, 1947. 3-290.