Moral Aphorism in Thoreau’s Walden
The Fox in Details, Details in the
Fox
Henry David Thoreau’s Walden is a philosophical treatise
in the guise of a memoir. It is filled with aphorisms, witticisms, sweeping
declarations, admonitions, poems, complaints, observations and more. He shows
up, he observes, he sums up: “Beware of all enterprises that require new
clothes;” “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation;” “As if you could
kill time without injuring eternity.” These are all aphorisms, pithy observations
that contain general truths.
He uses logic in search of freedom, rationalization in
search of wisdom. He turns things on their heads in order to get a new
perspective and discovers the importance of tails, or lack thereof: “He was the
lucky fox that left his tail in a trap.” The very things which we cherish most
may be those things which imprison or chain or trap us by virtue of our
attachment to them. The use of a fox, as opposed to a bear or a woodchuck,
subtly (and cunningly) suggests slyness and cunning. The reader is thrown off,
purposely, by the word “lucky.” We are apt to react in surprise: “How can it be
luck to lose your tail in a trap?” We are forced to think and to consider the
alternatives. We then realize that the “unlucky” fox (or bear) lost more than its tail. We are
reminded that “the muskrat will gnaw his third leg off to be free.” We are also
reminded of the idea that it sucks to get old until you consider the
alternative.
Thoreau has begun this paragraph writing about furniture
and about how it is not a necessity that we spend much time or money on it.
“There is a plenty of such chairs as I like best in the village garrets to be
had for taking them away.” We realize that, if chairs are being left behind by
starving artists who live in unfinished attics, then we need not spend a lot of
money on them. When we put two and two together, we realize that Thoreau is
telling us, in no uncertain terms that, when trapped by the temptations of
luxurious living, we had better forego the luxurious and keep the living. This
is the moral of the “tail.” As beautiful or even functional as a tail may be,
it is, in the final analysis, a luxury.
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