Henry David Thoreau - Walden

Question 1

Read the excerpt from Walden.Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito’s wing that falls on the rails. Let us rise early and fast, or break fast, gently and without perturbation; let company come and let company go, let the bells ring and the children cry—determined to make a day of it.How does Thoreau use the imagery of bells in the excerpt?

Revolt · Accepted Answer

C: The bells are a symbol of civilization.

Question 2

In the first paragraph of “Conclusion” in Walden, how does Thoreau explain his departure from the woods?

Revolt · Accepted Answer

D: He explains his departure as the movement from one part of his life to another.

Question 3

In the second paragraph of “Spring” in Walden, how does the contrast of two time periods aid the development of a theme?

Revolt · Accepted Answer

A: Thoreau’s description of a burst of light on a winter day resembles his own enlightenment.

Question 4

Read the excerpt from Walden.I am on the alert for the first signs of spring, to hear the chance note of some arriving bird, or the striped squirrel’s chirp, for his stores must be now nearly exhausted, or see the woodchuck venture out of his winter quarters.How do the images in the excerpt relate to Thoreau’s overall quest in Walden?

Revolt · Accepted Answer

C: They create a connection between Thoreau’s experience and the solitary animals that he is observing.

Question 5

How does the progress of the last paragraph of “Where I Lived and What I Lived For” communicate the main idea of Walden?

Revolt · Accepted Answer

B: Thoreau moves from gazing at the water to burrowing into the earth, just as the excerpt shows a progress from observation to contemplation.

Question 6

Read the excerpt from Walden.This is a delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense, and imbibes delight through every pore. I go and come with a strange liberty in Nature, a part of herself. As I walk along the stony shore of the pond in my shirt-sleeves, though it is cool as well as cloudy and windy, and I see nothing special to attract me, all the elements are unusually congenial to me.Which best states what the imagery in the excerpt suggests?

Revolt · Accepted Answer

D: Thoreau feels as if he is in harmony with the aspects of his environment.

Question 7

Read the excerpt from Walden.Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry. Men say that a stitch in time saves nine, and so they take a thousand stitches today to save nine tomorrow.How does the excerpt relate to today’s culture?

Revolt · Accepted Answer

A: It supports the idea that people move too quickly and forget to experience the present moment.

Question 8

Read the excerpt from the “Conclusion” of Walden.I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings.What belief about life is being described in this excerpt?

Revolt · Accepted Answer

B: Individuals who follow their dreams eventually attain them.

Question 9

Which best states the overall structure of Walden?

Revolt · Accepted Answer

B: The work describes Thoreau’s thoughts over the course of a year spent immersed in the natural world.

Question 10

Read the excerpt from Walden.[A]s the sun arose, I saw it [the pond] throwing off its nightly clothing of mist, and here and there, by degrees, its soft ripples or its smooth reflecting surface was revealed, while the mists, like ghosts, were stealthily withdrawing in every direction into the woods, as at the breaking up of some nocturnal conventicle [secret meeting].In the excerpt, Thoreau uses imagery to describe

Revolt · Accepted Answer

A: fog slowly rising from the surface of the pond.

Henry David Thoreau - Walden Answers

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