Your Horse or Mine? : An essay on Walden
Henry David Thoreau to much of the literary world was one of the greatest writers of all time. His philosophy, experiments, theories and opinions are considered genius even by today's standards. Thoreau does, however, manage to stump even the best of the english and literature scholars with one phrase in his book Walden. "I long ago lost a hound, a bay horse, and a turtle dove, and I am still on their trail. Many are the travelers I have spoken concerning them, describing their tracks and what calls they answered to. I have met one or two who had heard the hound, and the tramp of the horse, and even seen the turtle dove disappear behind a cloud, and they seemed as anxious to recover them as if they had lost them themselves." For some, the horse, turtle dove and hound are symbolic of actual human beings. His friend, father, girlfriend just to name a few. They believe that Thoreau is making reference to people who, at one time or another, were close to him and he cared for. These figures either dies, moved away, rejected him, or lost touch some how. In some way, he had lost people he held with a certain emotion. On the flip side, many others believe that he was only using the animals as a metaphor to show
Barbara Johnson, in her book A World of Difference, wrote a chapter entitled A Hound, a Bay Horse, and a Turtle Dove, which addressed the troubling and mental stresses that this certain passage has cause. The turtle dove, at least in a biblical sense, has always been the messenger of peace and hope. If Thoreau did lose hope, it is safe to say that all is not lost in him, because he did say that he is still on the their trail. Johnson wrote that "most readers have assumed that the hound the horse and the turtle dove were figurative containers or concrete vehicles into which some deeper, higher, or more abstract meanings could be made of it". Part of me wants to say that he wrote this book as an offering of hope to the life that he despised. Ironically, this is also the word that is used for a farm horse or wagon pulling steed of some sort. He wants society to get back to thinking for itself, which, is exactly why the hound, the bay horse, and the turtle dove are just as much Thoreau's as they are mine. When Jesus was baptized, God the Father came down from the heavens in the form of a dove and flew over Jesus and said "This is my son in whom I am well pleased". The master in this case, being culture, life, and society. In his mind and through his eyes, society had become so diluted and corrupt that he had given up hope on its turn around. In today's world the dove stands for love, peace, happiness, and calmness. The hound could have stood for a number of things. First I will tackle the bay horse, which by definition is a large work horse, one typically used on a farm as a beast of burden. However, to the average man, these types of horses were still enormous and represented strength, pride, and to an extent, dependability and reliance. Maybe he was writing the book with ideas that people would read it and see things his way.
Common topics in this essay:
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Ellen Sewall,
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Barbara Johnson,
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