Introducing the Selection Literary Focus: Metaphor Literary Focus: Literary Perspectives
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Introducing the Selection Literary Focus: Metaphor Literary Focus: Literary P erspectives Reading Focus: Making Gene ralizations About a Writer ’s Beliefs Writing Focus: Think as a Reader/Writer Feature Menu from Walden, or Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau
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from Walden, or Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau. Feature Menu. Introducing the Selection Literary Focus: Metaphor Literary Focus: Literary Perspectives Reading Focus: Making Generalizations About a Writer’s Beliefs Writing Focus: Think as a Reader/Writer. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
Transcript of Introducing the Selection Literary Focus: Metaphor Literary Focus: Literary Perspectives
Introducing the Selection
Literary Focus: Metaphor
Literary Focus: Literary Perspectives
Reading Focus: Making Generalizations About a Writer’s Beliefs
Writing Focus: Think as a Reader/Writer
Feature Menu
from Walden, or Life in the Woodsby Henry David Thoreau
Where does an individual find inspiration?
from Walden, or Life in the Woodsby Henry David Thoreau
Click on the title to start the video.
from Walden, or Life in the WoodsIntroducing the Selection
from Walden, or Life in the WoodsIntroducing the Selection
Walden is his famous account of his two-year experiment in simple living. These excerpts relate
In 1845, Thoreau went to live in a small cabin on Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts.
• his day-to-day experiences of life in the woods
• his ideas about what constitutes a life worth living
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from Walden, or Life in the WoodsIntroducing the Selection
What would it be like to live alone in a cabin in the woods, with no company but the birds and other animals? Would you be lonely, bored?
Or would you, like Thoreau, feel more alive than before?
from Walden, or Life in the Woods Literary Focus: Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that makes an implicit, or implied, comparison between two unlike things.
• A metaphor does not use a specific word of comparison such as like, as, than, or resembles.
• Instead, a metaphor says that something is something else.
from Walden, or Life in the Woods Literary Focus: Metaphor
• drawn from nature and from everyday, familiar things
Thoreau’s metaphors are
• highly visual
I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains.
—Henry David Thoreau
from Walden, or Life in the Woods Literary Focus: Metaphor
Buy a ticket for a cabin on a ship. Travel in safety and comfort. Meals in the dining room, comfortable bed in your cabin.
I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains.
— Henry David Thoreau
Work on a ship to pay for one’s passage. Enjoy the exhilaration of working on the deck—salt spray, crack of sails, sense of danger.
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from Walden, or Life in the Woods Literary Focus: Metaphor
In the metaphor, different ways of living are compared to different ways of traveling on a ship.
I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains.
—Henry David Thoreau
The comparison is Thoreau’s imaginative, fresh way of saying he doesn’t want to be safe and comfortable. He wants adventure.
Some students and literary critics examine how philosophies—or belief systems—influence a writer. This approach is called philosophical criticism.
from Walden, or Life in the WoodsLiterary Focus: Analyzing Philosophical Context
Philosophical Criticism
Philosophical criticism is important any time you are reading an essay that directly states the writer’s beliefs about right ways to live.
from Walden, or Life in the WoodsLiterary Focus: Analyzing Philosophical Context
Philosophical Criticism
Thoreau wrote such essays. As you read Walden, think about the philosophical context.
from Walden, or Life in the WoodsLiterary Focus: Analyzing Philosophical Context
Thoreau belonged to a group of thinkers and writers called the Transcendentalists.
Thoreau and Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism is the idea that a person must go beyond everyday human experience in the physical world in order to determine the ultimate reality of God, the universe, and the self.
from Walden, or Life in the WoodsLiterary Focus: Analyzing Philosophical Context
Thoreau and Transcendentalism
The verb transcend comes from Latin roots meaning “to climb beyond.”
Notice how often Thoreau suggests that individuals can climb beyond the confinement of everyday life and reach a higher spiritual place.
Also think about how Thoreau’s beliefs compare with those of other writers of the time.
from Walden, or Life in the WoodsLiterary Focus: Analyzing Philosophical Context
Thoreau and Transcendentalism
• To what extent does Thoreau share the optimistic views of his friend and fellow Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson?
• Some critics consider Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe anti-Transcendentalists. How does Thoreau’s view of human nature compare with theirs?
from Walden, or Life in the Woods Reading Focus: Making Generalizations About a Writer’s Beliefs
A generalization is a type of inference in which a conclusion is drawn from examples in the text.
Examples in Text
Some of my pleasantest hours were during the long rainstorms . . . which confined me to the house. . . .
What do we want most to dwell near to? Not to many men surely . . . but to the perennial source of our life. . . .
Generalization
Solitude is a valuable state that helps us understand the true meaning of life.
—Henry David Thoreau
You can make generalizations about a writer’s beliefs based on what you read.
from Walden, or Life in the Woods Reading Focus: Making Generalizations About a Writer’s Beliefs
Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed. . . . If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. It is not important that he should mature as soon as an apple tree or an oak.
—Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau believes anyone can discover a unique path in life, but this discovery comes at different times for different people.
Generalization
Into Action: Use a chart like this one to record Thoreau’s metaphors and any generalizations you can make based on those metaphors.
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Metaphors and Generalizations Chart
Metaphors
“Did you ever think what those sleepers are that underlie the railroad? Each one is a man, an Irishman, or a Yankee man.”
Generalizations
Thoreau felt many individuals in society were being trod upon by other, more fortunate people.
from Walden, or Life in the Woods Reading Focus: Making Generalizations About a Writer’s Beliefs
Find It in Your Reading
from Walden, or Life in the Woods Writing Focus: Think as a Reader/Writer
Thoreau’s metaphors are often drawn from nature and everyday things.
In the meanwhile there came along a single red ant on the hillside of this valley, evidently full of excitement, who either had dispatched his foe, or had not yet taken part in the battle. . . .
—Henry David Thoreau
As you read, note how these metaphors echo Thoreau’s idea that simple things can have a profound meaning.
Keep a list of the metaphors, and write down a paraphrase of each one to make sure you understand its meaning.
Vocabulary
ethereal adj.: not of the earth; spiritual.
from Walden, or Life in the WoodsVocabulary
superficial adj.: on the surface; shallow.
derision n.: ridicule or contempt.
tumultuous adj.: very noisy, disorderly, or violent.
incessantly adv.: without stopping; constantly.
The girl has a superficial wound.
The word superficial can be used to refer to physical injury or damage:
from Walden, or Life in the WoodsVocabulary
The scratch on the car is superficial.
The wound and the scratch are on the surface alone. Neither is very deep.
Does he have many deep friendships?
Jake is a pretty superficial guy.
Superficial can also refer to people or to mental processes.
from Walden, or Life in the WoodsVocabulary
Jean has a superficial understanding of history.
Would you want her as a study partner for social studies?
How clean is the living room?
a. extremely clean
b. somewhat clean
c. not clean at all
Carlos gave the living room a superficial cleaning before the party.
from Walden, or Life in the WoodsVocabulary
How clean is the living room?
a. extremely clean
b. somewhat clean
c. not clean at all
Carlos gave the living room a superficial cleaning before the party.
from Walden, or Life in the WoodsVocabulary
When you think incessantly, what words come to mind?
from Walden, or Life in the WoodsVocabulary
Word: Definition:
Image:Sentence:
constantly
never-ending
without interruption
persistently
ceaselessly
Examples:
The dog barks incessantly when left in
the yard.
incessantly adv.: without stopping.
It has been snowing incessantly for the past six hours. Which scene are you more likely to see when you look out the window?
from Walden, or Life in the WoodsVocabulary
Scene A Scene B
It has been snowing incessantly for the past six hours. Which scene are you more likely to see when you look out the window?
from Walden, or Life in the WoodsVocabulary
Scene A Scene B
The word derision is based on the verb deride, which means “to laugh at scornfully” or “to make fun of.”
Which image best illustrates the meaning of derision?
from Walden, or Life in the WoodsVocabulary
Since he took office a year ago, Mayor Perkins has become the object of much derision.
from Walden, or Life in the WoodsVocabulary
Mayor Perkins is probably
a. doing a really good job lowering the crime rate
b. gaining the respect of most citizens
c. proposing changes that people find silly or unwise
Since he took office a year ago, Mayor Perkins has become the object of much derision.
from Walden, or Life in the WoodsVocabulary
Mayor Perkins is probably
a. doing a really good job lowering the crime rate
b. gaining the respect of most citizens
c. proposing changes that people find silly or unwise
Examples:
from Walden, or Life in the WoodsVocabulary
When you think tumultuous, what words and phrases come to mind?
tumultuous
What places or activities might be tumultuous?
noisy
rowdy
uproar
violent
stormy
disorder
Associations:
a big city street
a hurricane
a battle in a war
a preschool playground
a crowd in a natural disaster
A tumultuous crowd of Hawks fans made their way out of the stadium.
from Walden, or Life in the WoodsVocabulary
Do you think the Hawks won the game? Was it an exciting game?
Yes. The fans are happy and excited.
Something that is ethereal is like the upper reaches of space. It is very light and not earthly.
Ancient thinkers believed that a very light substance called ether made up all of outer space.
Which words are synonyms for ethereal?
from Walden, or Life in the WoodsVocabulary
heavenly
spiritual
intellectual
celestial
substantial
airy
Which of these people most likely spends a lot of time thinking about ethereal matters?
from Walden, or Life in the WoodsVocabulary
A B C
Which of these people most likely spends a lot of time thinking about ethereal matters?
from Walden, or Life in the WoodsVocabulary
A B C
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