Walden: or Life in the Woods and On the Duty of Civil Disobedience

American transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau declares independence from society in this work in his spiritual discovery of self-reliance. Building a cabin in the woods near Walden Pond Thoreau looks at the state of society over two years from the edge of town. Living on land owned by his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson. Through simple and self sufficiency living Thoreau hoped he hoped to get a more independent view of society. Wrapping his two years spent in the cabin into one the book uses the passage of the seasons to symbolize mans development.