Critic speak is tough, but we've got you covered.
Quote :Walden: Or Life in the Woods
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.
Is this guy just some weird loner? Or perhaps a nature mystic? That whole "sucking the marrow out of life" bit sounds kind of gross. But also kind of awesome, are we right?
In this excerpt from Walden, Thoreau's arguing that when humans have grocery stores and restaurants to provide them with quick eats, easy shelter, and everyday routines that involve commutes, crying kids, and other trappings of modern life, they're not really living. Why? Because some of life's greatest joys lie in nature, in fending for yourself, and in enjoying simple pleasures.
Civilization is rife with social and economic injustice, overconsumption, and the exploitation of others. And all of these ills corrupt the human soul, Thoreau thought. He wanted us to get back to the bare necessities. The simple bare necessities, you know?
When Ecocriticism hit the scene, many scholars applied Thoreau's concept of reducing life to "its lowest terms" to reducing great books' form and content to their essential qualities. Where are the essential facts of life hidden in our stories? In the language of our literature?
But wait, you say. Eating and breathing and walking and sleeping are just boring, regular-human stuff. Where's the excitement and the art in that? Well, consider this example of how the bare necessities mold our cultural and emotional lives: the way cultures eat tell us a ton about what those cultures values, what their technologies are like, and so on.
What conclusions do you draw about a character who drinks English tea in her home? What about a character who goes out to eat a Texas barbecue buffet? Would those two characters get along? A lot of big meanings can hide in little things, Shmoopers.