The Vicissitudes of Walden

Abstract

Starting from a postmodern, in particular a reader-response, perspective, this paper discusses the wide diversity of possible interpretations of the pond in Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. Thoreau presents Walden Pond in terms of objects that are discussable and thinkable, rather than as a mere body of water situated somewhere in Massachusetts, New England. Since then the pond has been defined and redefined in endless readings which associate it with diverse objects. Applying the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce’s semiotics to the reading of Walden Pond, leads to a discovery that the meanings of the pond can never be fixed or static, but will always be vicissitudinous. This insight underscores the point that any analysis of Walden that attempts to adopt a fixed focus is meaningless.

Keywords: Walden, vicissitude, individualism, back-to-nature, reader response, interpretant