Chapter 8: The Village

In Chapter 8 of Walden (also one of the shortest), William Henry Thoreau gives the reader a very up close inspection of the village he lives near, as he gives us unique observations and discoveries, while often tying in the society's habits with nature. Thoreau's tone is consistently that of an observative author that is delightfully intrigued with the daily life of the village, and the variety of people or dwellers within. In almost every observation of a building or a person, Thoreau carefully relates him to an aspect of nature, showing is transcendental feeling, and sending off an aura of calm excitement. "In one direction from my house there was a colony of muskrats in the river meadows; under the grove of elms and buttonwoods in the other horizon was a village of busy men, as curious to me as if they had been prairie-dogs, each sitting at the mouth of its burrow, or running over to a neighbor's to gossip.." Thoreau also implies to the reader that he is a detached member of this active society as: he lives in the woods away from "civilization", reports to the village only to hear the latest gossip, just by boredom, or for necessary needs such as mending his shoe. "As I walked in the woods to see the birds and squirrels, so I walked in the village to see the men and boys; instead of the wind among the pines I heard the carts rattle...The village appeared to me a great news room; and on one side, to support it, as once at Redding & Company's on State Street, they kept nuts and raisins, or salt and meal and other groceries. Some have such a vast appetite for the former commodity, that is, the news, and such sound digestive organs, that they can sit forever in public avenues without stirring, and let it simmer and whisper through them like the Etesian winds." As one who is more comfortable around the woods and ultimately nature, he states his only reason as going to the village is for keen observation of the "newsroom." Thoreau uses a wide range of diction such as "inhaling", "digested", "appetite", "lick"to describe the village life and the attitudes of the people within, caught up in their work. Such wording also helps us to visualize the extent of the village people's lifetstyles. "all gossip is first rudely digested or cracked up before it is emptied into finer and more delicate hoppers within doors..the houses were so arranged as to make the most of mankind, in lanes and fronting one another, so that every traveller had to run the gauntlet, and every man, woman, and child might get a lick at him..Signs were hung out on all sides to allure him; some to catch him by the appetite." Thoreau then returns to telling of his familiarity and fondness of the forest.“Sometimes, after coming home thus late in a dark and muggy night, when my feet felt the path which my eyes could not see, dreaming and absent-minded all the way, until I was aroused by having to raise my hand to lift the latch, I have not been able to recall a single step of my walk...it is a surprising and memorable, as well as valuable experience, to be lost in the woods any time.” As Thoreau speaks to everyone who has not really taken the time to bond with nature, he states that his life in living such a simple way is not so bad, and that it even may be better for society. He has found his true home, and he also wants us to "find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations."