摘 要

亨利·戴维·梭罗的著作《瓦尔登湖》是世界文学名著。它记录了梭罗居住在瓦尔登湖畔近两年的生活，主要描述了人、社会和自然三者之间的关系。梭罗在他的这部如同日记一般的作品中展现了他对自然的热爱，以及对现代社会发展的批判。通过阅读梭罗本人的生活经历，人们可以进一步理解独处、沉思和亲近自然的重要性，而这也正是梭罗想让读者收获到的东西。

近年来，随着对《瓦尔登湖》的研究越来越多，它的文学价值和艺术魅力逐步展现在世人面前。而修辞手法作为表现其艺术魅力的重要内容，值得读者进行全面而深刻的研究。因此，本文分析了《瓦尔登湖》中的类比修辞手法，主要分为三部分。第一部分介绍了梭罗本人、写作风格以及《瓦尔登湖》的主要内容和主题。第二部分分析了《瓦尔登湖》第二章“我生活的地方，我为何生活”和第十二章“与兽为邻”中的类比修辞，包括人与动物之间的类比，普通人与历史人物之间的类比，人类生活与其他事物之间的类比。最后一部分对全文进行总结，指出梭罗通过类比的修辞手法展现《瓦尔登湖》的主题思想，将《瓦尔登湖》的艺术性和思想性巧妙结合在一起，进一步凸显了这本著作的文学价值。

关键词：《瓦尔登湖》；自然；人类；类比；和谐

Abstract

Henry David Thoreau’s famous work Walden is a literary masterpiece in the world. This book records Thoreau’s two-year life beside Walden Pond. It mainly presents the relationship between human beings, society and nature. Thoreau expresses his love to nature and criticism on modern development in his book which is like a dairy. By reading Thoreau’s personal experience, readers can further understand the importance of solitude, contemplation, and closeness to nature, which is what Thoreau wants readers can acquire from his book.

In recent years, the studies of Walden have become more and more popular. As a result, its literary value and artistic charm have been gradually shown to people. While rhetorical devices, as an important part of revealing its artistic charm, are worthy of comprehensive and profound research. Therefore, this paper mainly analyzes the rhetorical technique-analogy in Walden. It can be divided into three parts. Firstly, it will introduce Thoreau, his writing style and the main content and theme of Walden. Secondly, analogy in the book will be discussed mainly based on chapter 2 “Where I Lived, and What I Lived for” and chapter 12 “Brute Neighbors” from three aspects: analogy between human beings and animals, analogy between common people and historical figures, analogy between human life and things. The last part is a summary of the whole paper, pointing out that Thoreau presents the theme of Walden by using analogy, perfectly achieving the combination between Walden’s artistic characteristics and thematic expressions and further revealing the literary value of this book.

Key Words: Walden; nature; human beings; analogy; harmony

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Henry David Thoreau and Walden 1

1.2 Literary review 2

1.3 The significance and layout of this paper 4

2 Analogy between Human Beings and Animals 5

2.1 Human beings and ants 5

2.2 Human beings and burrowing creatures 7

2.3 Human beings and chanticleer 8

3 Analogy between Common People and Historical Figures 10

3.1 Common people and sleepers 10

3.2 Common people and Ulysses 11

3.3 Common people and Spartans 12

4 Analogy between Human Life and Things 14

4.1 Human life and German Confederacy 14

4.2 Human life and sea 15

5 Conclusion 17

5.1 Summary 17

5.2 Further study 17

References 19

Acknowledgements 20

Analysis of Analogy in Thoreau’s Walden

1 Introduction

1.1 Henry David Thoreau and Walden

Henry David Thoreau is a famous essayist, philosopher, naturalist, and transcendentalist in the 19th century. He was born and lived nearly all his life in Concord, Massachusetts. He received his early education in Concord and graduated from Harvard in 1837. Besides, he is a student of Ralph Waldo Emerson and deeply affected by his teacher. Getting Emerson’s permission, Thoreau began his famous experiment near Walden Pond. However, in terms of literary contributions, different from his teacher’s distinctive speech and didactic essays, Thoreau provides a special mode of life with his action(图雅，高娃，2014). He writes his personal experience and thoughts in his works. His literary works present his close observation of nature, colorful personal experience, pointed rhetoric, symbolic meanings, and historical lore. He pays much attention on the comparison between nature and human society. He is also deeply interested in the idea of survival in the face of hostile elements, historical change, and natural decay. Besides, he advocates abandoning waste that human beings actually do not need and illusion that may lead them into degeneration in order to discover the essence of life.

In the 19th century, American industry had been developed rapidly, destroying the harmony between human beings and nature, causing the loss of humanity and bringing the misunderstanding and ignorance of the meaning of life. At the same time, transcendentalism, a significant ideological emancipation movement, had risen under the effort of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Transcendentalism divides the world into two parts: the material part and the spiritual part. For those transcendentalists, the secret of successful living is to hold themselves above material concerns as much as possible and to focus on the spiritual needs. Under those complicated social conflicts, Thoreau presents his complicated attitude towards the society in his famous book-Walden which records his two-year life beside Walden Pond. This book, like a dairy, includes Thoreau’s love to nature and criticism on modern development. It emphasizes the importance of solitude, contemplation, and closeness to nature in transcending the "desperate" existence. “Thoreau is a keen observer of nature and devotes his life to the exploration of nature, discovering the friendship between nature and human beings”(鲁玉霞，2012: 183). The book combines autobiography with a social critique of contemporary western consumerism and materialism and its distance from and destruction of nature. As he shouts in his work “Simplicity! Simplicity! Simplicity”(吴定柏, 2014: 39), we can see that simplicity is his lifestyle. He points that most modern people have been trapped by family, work and sorts of material needs, though they realize the significance and importance of those material needs. As a result, they lose their spirit and their life is full of waste, and that life can not be “real life”, as Thoreau says. Therefore, Walden is created to call for spiritual awakening, to remind us that man is part of nature, and to reveal social weakness.

When Walden was published in 1854, it was not well accepted and regarded as “wicked and heathenish” and anti-social(吴定柏, 2014). Thoreau himself even was called “nullifier of civilization” because of this book. But with time going by, the value of Walden is increasing. More and more studies are conducted to recover its immense significance for dealing with contemporary social problems.

1.2 Literary review

With the change of modern life, Walden has attracted more and more people’s attention. The study of this work has been increasing. Those researches mainly focus on Walden’s linguistic features, chief subjects, and translation in China.

As for linguistic features, Zeng Nijuan and Xu Xuemei has introduced the rhetorical device in their article. They mainly analyze the use of metaphor, personification, paradox and pun to present the rhetorical charm of Walden(曾妮娟，徐雪梅，2008). Luan Shuang discusses Walden’s rhetorical techniques like metaphor, personification, pun, parallelism and irony to show Thoreau’s view of nature(栾爽，2016). Li Guanlin and Meng Caihong emphasize Walden’s simple metaphor in lexical metaphor, conceptual metaphor and interpersonal metaphor in grammatical metaphor to analyze the text(李冠林，孟彩虹，2016). Mao Yaxu explains the linguistic charm of Walden from the perspective of its colloquial and humorous language to reveal Thoreau’s unique style(毛亚旭，2016). And Du Shihong combines Walden’s linguistic philosophy and transcendentalism to convey its writing characteristics and themes(杜世洪，2014). While some foreign scholars also have related researches. Donald fully analyzes the style of Thoreau’s Walden in his dissertation. He “ First, considering style according to the method employed provides a vocabulary for meaning and accurate description. Second, this method provides a means by which to make critical judgments about the style of Walden itself ”(Ross, Jr, 1967: 4).

Besides, some researches emphasize the themes of the book. Zhou Xuesong explores the “doubleness” in Thoreau’s views of nature and civilization respectively. In terms of Thoreau’s view of nature, he on the one hand sees nature as the tool for his own spiritual growth, while on the other hand observes nature in detail like an ecologist. In terms of his attitude toward civilization, Thoreau on the one hand criticizes slavery and materialism, and on the other hand he identifies himself as a middle-class elite of high education and has imperialist mindset(周雪松，2006). In addition, more scholars stand in the point of ecology of Walden. Wan Yuming, Zhou Renping, He Li and Sun Le analyze Thoreau’s ecological ideas by comparing him with another typical romantic writer James Fennimore Cooper(王玉明，周仁萍，何丽，孙乐，2014). Wang Weibo compares Thoreau with Zhuangzi to present Thoreau’s pure pursuit of meaningful life and his wish to build harmonious relationship with nature(王维博，2012). While others stress other subjects of Walden. In Chen Yi’s “Thoreau’s Walden: A Return to Human Kind”, she probes into the relationship between human and nature to explain the purpose of Thoreau’s writing(陈怡，2015). Han Xingde points out that the period of living near Walden Pond is an important stage of Thoreau’s personality development. Those images and symbols are reflections of his change and transformation(韩德星，2009). Nancy indicates the wildness embodied in the role of forest in Walden, for it promotes “the spiritual architectonics for a sane and sanctified life”(Schramm, Karen Nancy, 1991:10). Balthazor focuses on the organic structure of Walden’s last chapter “Conclusion” , which means he will exam how Thoreau’s “expression reflects his observation of Nature and his spiritual quest”(Ronald Lee Balthazor, 1984:13).

Furthermore, some studies of the features of Walden’s translation and differences in various translating versions have appeared since the influence of this book has increased. Liu Lvechang describes the process of Xu Chi’s translation of Walden. Through his introduction of the whole process, he mainly wants to show the effect of political environment and personal factors on literary translation(刘略昌，2015). Han Song analyzes the necessity of notes in literary ideological trend, literary quotations and rhetorics during the translation(韩松，2015). Zhao Xudong discusses the reasons of different translation versions between Xu Chi and Dai Huan. He concludes that linguistic property and social factors cause the difference and evaluates their translations objectively and fairly(赵旭东，2012).