The Grapes of Wrath and Walden's Transcendental Wisdom
As readers it is our opportunity to compare and contrast the transcendental aspect prevalent in both Henry David Thoreau's Walden and John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath. Both books are fine examples of American literature at its greatest. They are also excellent examples of the Transcendental Philosophy that was championed by authors during their time. Though written roughly one hundred years apart, they both carried the voice of nature that rang loud and clear on the American landscape. Transcendentalism places its utmost respect in the intuitive knowledge man gleans from nature. Nature transcends the limits of human sense experience and teaches us the foundation of moral truths. Both authors relied on the symbiotic relationship between man and nature to connect the reader with the Transcendental concept of "oversoul"- a state of unity in which every man's particular being is contained and made one with all others. When Walden was written America was a new turf, a new vast piece of land that had not been altered by the human hand (the Native Americans didn't count because they had always been too respectful of it to leave much of an impact). Transcendentalism purported the philosophy that God was nature. Therefore, in America,
By this he meant that one level of consciousness connects all inhabitants of earth, and that the human challenge was to decipher this conundrum and find out where he belonged. It couldn't wait to be feed while the farmer rotated his crops. Both writers, though from vastly different times in American history, expose us to the fundamental truths of transcendentalism, and show us why it is a philosophy that was easily exemplified in the frontiers of America. It couldn't withstand the slack years by being told that doing so would create abundance in the future. In The Grapes of Wrath Steinbeck is less obviously concerned with the philosophical issues of Transcendentalism, but examples that reinforce the transcendental view point of man's spiritual dependency on nature are rampant. Thoreau felt he was nearly swallowed by this de-humanizing demand when he came very close to being a landowner himself. He saw that the government had already created an artificial need for something of artificial value: money. They began to loose their identity and their souls when they were forced to mortgage the property. This demand was a result of eager new minds searching for new sources of knowledge. Thoreau points out how eager men are to develop a way to speed past nature via machines that remain disconnected from it. Thoreau spends much time telling us of its evils, and how proud he is of the fact that he can survive nicely with little dependency on it. Not only were they blind to the perfections of nature, but actually to improve upon them. Both authors strove to guide their readers and bring them to this higher level of spiritual understanding. Thoreau's message was clearly meant to open the reader's eyes to the fact that they were becoming increasingly blind to the abundant blessings of nature, and how freely it bestowed these on them.
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