Literary Art as a Form of Self-Inquiry in Thoreau’s Walden

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Volume 5, Number 1

Literary Art as a Form of Self-Inquiry in Thoreau’sWalden

Forough Barani and Wan Roselezam Wan Yahya

THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY SOCIAL SCIENCES http://www.SocialSciences-Journal.com First published in 2010 in Champaign, Illinois, USA by Common Ground Publishing LLC www.CommonGroundPublishing.com. © 2010 (individual papers), the author(s) © 2010 (selection and editorial matter) Common Ground Authors are responsible for the accuracy of citations, quotations, diagrams, tables and maps. All rights reserved. Apart from fair use for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act (Australia), no part of this work may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher. For permissions and other inquiries, please contact <[email protected]>. ISSN: 1833-1882 Publisher Site: http://www.SocialSciences-Journal.com THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY SOCIAL SCIENCES is peer-reviewed, supported by rigorous processes of criterion-referenced article ranking and qualitative commentary, ensuring that only intellectual work of the greatest substance and highest significance is published. Typeset in Common Ground Markup Language using CGCreator multichannel typesetting system http://www.commongroundpublishing.com/software/

Literary Art as a Form of Self-Inquiry in Thoreau’sWaldenForough Barani, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Selangor, MalaysiaWan Roselezam Wan Yahya, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Selangor,Malaysia

Abstract: In his non-fiction work Walden, Henry David Thoreau’s internal dialogues and meditationsreveal to us his “self” as embodied in his literary work. While in this selected work there is a closeanalogy between self and the text, which both are a series of inner voices juxtaposed with and oftencontradicting one another, in order to decipher the artist’s persona, this study frames its analysiswithin two perspectives: the sociolinguistics (Bakhtin’s ‘Dialogism’) and psychology (Herman’s‘Dialogical Self’). This attempt to investigate the aesthetic and ideological statements of the narratorof Walden explores the extent of nature’s influence on him as an alienated writer; and examines thecultural heritage in the context of American society of Thoreau to identify the roots of the broken tiesbetween “self” and the “society” to shed light on the individual and social self of the narrator inWalden. This study concludes that this selected non-fiction work is not just a monological poeticmeditation of its author but a polyphonic contemplation of internal voices carnivalizing the socialideologies of its time embodied in his art as a pursuit of self inquiry.

Keywords: Psychology, Self, Society, Subpersonalities

Introduction

MANY A TIME we have heard a voice within ourselves speaking. It is a part ofus that may denote a negative or positive experience within us and we wonder“what has got into us.” At times we feel an inner temptation or desire that actsor behaves unusual against our interests or morals. This is why at different situ-

ations we feel as if different personalities inside us are in dialogue, think and behave differ-ently from what we normally perceive ourselves to be. Rowan (1990) in his Subpersonalities:The People Inside Us, describes this phenomenon as the interplay of subpersonalities, anddefines it as a semi-permanent and semi-autonomous region of the personality capable ofacting as a person.1 According to Rowan subpersonalities have a range of relative dissociationin that they take us even sometimes gently and other times more forcefully. Marie-LouiseVon Franz, a Jungian psychotherapist, for instance, describes herself and her subpersonalitiesthat clearly highlight the above mentioned phenomenon:

1 Very close to Rawdon’s discussion of the working of subpersonalities is the system of psychosynthesis introducedby Alberto Assagioli (1910) in Italy. Psychosynthesis assumes the existence of different subpersonalities in closeinteraction to one another and argues that growth in one’s personality can be achieved by recognizing them all. Heconsiders five phases, recognition, acceptance, coordination, integration and finally synthesis. For more explanationrefer to chapter 3, the Plays of Subpersonalities, Dialogical Self: Meaning as Movement by Hubert J. M. Hermansand Harry J. G. Kempen (1993).

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I could give you a whole list of the persons I can be. I am an old peasant woman whothinks of cooking and the house. I am a scholar who thinks about deciphering manu-scripts. I am a psychotherapist who thinks about how to interpret people’s dreams. Iam a mischievous little boy who enjoys the company of a ten-year-old and playingmischievous tricks on adults, and so on. I could give you twenty more such characters.They suddenly enter you but if you see what is happening you can keep them out ofyour system, play with them and put them aside again. But if you are possessed theywill enter you involuntary and you act them out involuntary (Rowan 9).

Aim of the StudyThis study specifically aims to unravel the existence of diverse subpersonalities in HenryDavid Thoreau’s “self” in referring to his Walden (1854). Indeed, one can detect differentfacets of Thoreau’s “self” in the same way that Marie-Louise Von Franz has defined herdiverse selves; Thoreau the poet, the naturalist, observer, recorder and reporter of the natureand on the other hand, Thoreau the socialist, reformer, satirist, Poet-prophet. To maintainone’s “cohesive self” one should come to know his “actual” and “potential” selves.

William James (1890) in his Principles of Psychology identifies the “multiplicity ofidentity” and refers to the common notion of one’s personal characteristics and feelings aswell as one’s social roles and status. As it was clear in naming Thoreau’s subpersonalities,two general lines of his “self” can be traced in referring to him: Thoreau, the naturalist poetand Thoreau, the social critic. James describes the self as a “unitary” and “multi-faced”phenomenon. This concept can be explained more clearly in his distinction between “I” and“me” which he considers as the two basic components of the self. In James argument, the“I” is defined as the purely subjective facet of the self while on the other hand, the “me” isquite objective and is known as the “empirical self.” He later assumes that “self is not anentity closed off from the world and having an existence in itself, but, rather, extended towardspecific aspects of the environment” (Hermans & Kempen, 1993: 44).

In line with James consideration of the self is Mead’s (1934) assertion about the self divi-sions that is “me” which social roles are ascribed to and on the other hand, the “I” that innov-ative act of personality comes from. The innovative artist apparent in the poetic contemplationand description of nature in Walden’s Thoreau is the actual outcome of the “I” facet ofThoreau’s self. His poetic imagination is apparent in the metaphor he uses, “What shouldwe think of the shepherd’s life if his flocks always wandered to higher pastures than histhoughts?” (59) Thoreau’s unconventionality in establishing his specific voice and languagein a disagreement with the established norms of the society indicates his personal innatepersonality, “I,” against that of conventionally rule-governed, “me,” the “generalized other”(Hermans & Kempen, 1993:108). “The generalized other,” that is an integral part of the self,is responsible for one’s social and rational conducts. Although there are multitude of selvesin one’s personality, this “generalized other” by reflecting the unity and structure of the socialprocess as a whole, brings unity to the self. “The generalized other,” as a part of a communitywill take the norms of its adopted social group:

“Unsocialized, the individual would founder in irrational selfishness; partially socialized,he would founder in the multiplicity of fragmentary selves; fully socialized, he becomesrational and moral, and the interests of his multiple selves are consolidated into a super-

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ordinate self-interest, which in its turn has been coordinated with the interests of all”(Gregg, qtd. in Hermans & Kempen, 1993: 111).

Dialogism as a Conceptual TheoryDialogue is “a manifold phenomenon,” but we can characterize it with three basic elements:a dialogue is composed of an utterance, a reply and a relation between the two (Holquist,2002:38). To elaborate this statement in Bakhtinian explanation, the third element is con-sidered to have the greatest importance since “nothing is anything in itself” and without thisrelation the two other would have no meaning. Bakhtin (1973) further asserts that in a dialo-gical give and take as soon as the word is uttered, it is considered as “double-voiced.” Sowhen speaking, a word tends toward two points in place and time; at one moment it tendstoward an object of speech and simultaneously toward another word that is originated inanother person’s speech. In the light of the aroused issue referring to Thoreau’s Walden onecan trace many examples of such conversational interaction of Thoreau’s “self” with imaginedor real “other.” In these cases the words of the “other” is quite present in the act of speaking,even those seemingly monological speeches, in the way that the influence and contributionsof this seemingly absent “other” in form and content of the conversation is quite evident.Bakhtin further underlines that, “the author’s intention makes use of another person’s wordin the direction of its own aspiration” (Hermans & Kempen, 1993:42).

In the following passage from Walden, Thoreau implicitly provides a form of questionand response in a sense that one gives a list of social norms while the other is the interpretationand answer to those norms. This passage can be written in a dialogic form as denoting theinteraction between Thoreau as the critic and the reader that beholds the socially definedstandards:

Reader: We meet at very short intervals,Thoreau: not having had time to acquire any new value for each otherReader: We meet at meals three times a dayThoreau: and give each other a new taste of that old musty cheese that we areReader: We have had to agree on a certain set of rules, called etiquette and politenessThoreau: to make this frequent meeting tolerable and that we need not come to openwar (Walden, 91).

In order to criticize the society that “is commonly too cheap,” Thoreau avoids the directform of question and response which creates a “double-voicedness” as the organizing qualityof the speech of a single speaker that is equivalent to what Bakhtin means by his definitionof “hidden dialogicality,” in which “the second interlocutor is invisibly present” and “theprofound traces of his determine all of the first interlocutor’s word. Although only one personis speaking, we feel that this is a conversation, and a most intense one, since every word thatis present answers and reacts with its every fiber to the invisible interlocutor” (Bakhtin,1973: 163-4).

This approach to dialogue and the influence of the unseen but present interlocutor emphat-ically illustrates that for Bakhtin the notion of dialogue is not identical with explicitly spokenconversation. In this light dialogue is present in every form of thought. Bakhtin’s analysisof the “microdialogues” will be a help to have a better understanding of what Bakhtin means

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FOROUGH BARANI, WAN ROSELEZAM WAN YAHYA

by “dialogue.” This model serves for an interior dialogue in which the other participant inthe dialogue is present even when the thinker is alone. Bakhtin’s definition demonstratesthe idea that “dialogue is present in every word, giving rise to conflicts and interruptions ofone voice by another, even if the other person is not actually talking” (Hermans & Kempen,1993:43).

In relation to the role of the self in the narrative works, Mancuso and Sarbin (1983) con-tributed their theory of “I as author” and “me as actor” to the psychology of the self. Theysuggest that the uttered pronoun “I” stands for the author and the “me” for the actor or nar-rative figure. Such an approach to the self and its constituents is particularly feasible to thestudy of non-fiction works likeWalden when the author as the “I” constructs a story that the“me” as the actor is its protagonist. Thoreau’s “I-author” in this light relates and reconstructshis past and present and respectively imagines his future life. Julian Janes(1976) also assertsthat this kind of narrativization is present in all the individual’s behavior and activities as“purpose and cause inextricably woven into the spatialization of behavior in consciousness”in a way that in the “dynamics of consciousness” the “I” always perceives the “me” as themain figure in the story of one’s life.2

In the light of Sarbin’s theory(1986) the self-narrative in Walden depicts the life story ofThoreau’s “I” which sees his “me” acting his two year’s life in Walden Pond, “here is life,an experiment to a great extend untried by me” (5). This can be further elaborated withBakhtin’s idea of “polyphony” in which the self can live in a multiplicity of worlds whileeach of these worlds have its own independent author with its independent story that iscompletely different in tone and subject matter from other worlds. Accordingly these authorswith their individual authority and unique perspective may interact dialogically with eachother. In this respect the voice of Thoreau in the chapter “Society” and its preoccupation iscompletely different with that of, for instance, “The Pond” : each can be seen as a differentworld in which different world views are presented. This can be generalized in referring toother chapters that are even in dialogic relation in which one is in a form of a response tothe other: “Reading” and “Sound,” “Solitude” and “Visitors,” “The Pond” and “The Pondin Winter.”

This distinction emphasizes the role of the other people in the interplay between “I” and“me.” Therefore, the existence of the social self which has the capacity of “taking the roleof the other” in Mead’s words, indicates the influence of the “other” that can be decisive inthe self function,

There are parts of the self which exists only for the self in relationship to itself. We divideourselves up in all sorts of different selves with reference to our acquaintances. Wediscuss politics with one and religion with another” (Mead, 1934:142).

2 To clarify his explanation, Julian Janes provides an example when one plans to visit his/her friend. All the wayto his/her home the “I” is imagining the “me” talking and conversing with his/her friend. The Origin of Consciousnessin the Breakdown of The Bicameral Mind. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976.

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Analysis and Findings

Two Facet of the Same Self: Thoreau’s “I” in Dialoguewith Thoreau’s “Me”In dealing with Thoreau the naturalist one can easily recognize that he is mostly preoccupiedwith the nature and seasonal cycle rather than society and its ideology. From this perspectiveThoreau’s Walden is seen as the “records of unconscious,” (Chodat, 1995:26). Thus in thisnon-fiction work the apparent multi-voicedness is embodied within the figure of the authorhimself rather than the characters. Thoreau’s inner child addresses and contemplates hismother “Nature.” In the extended metaphor of seasons he spiritually exemplifies his symbolicinner growth from innocence to experience and then again back to innocence but this timewith knowledge. The records of the self-conscious mind of the author is not static rather itis dynamic and in motion: every moment is subject to change and revise, seeking differentaspects and perspectives in the way to come to the ultimate truth of the self. Robert Chodatfully exploits the movements of the mind in Walden and asserts, “Reading Walden, onesenses a mind committed to an exploration of the present moment, with each moment evincinga voice of its own. The voice of a given moment might fully contradict the previous one,but both are given a place in the text” (1995: 26).

Thoreau’s Walden is more likely a “spiritual autobiography” in which diversity of voiceswith diversity of ideologies come into a dialogic interaction which finally at the end of thisrather long contemplation a unified whole emerges out of the chaos, “The creation of cosmosout of chaos,” the realization of the “Golden Age” of his self, while “in the pleasant springmorning all men’s sin are forgiven” (Walden, 207). He celebrates his “innocence recovered”in the end of his chapter “Spring” by the advent of new life in nature herself. This patternof life, death and rebirth that goes beyond the linear time links Thoreau to the tradition ofNatural Supernaturalism of Romanticism. This is the notion of “divided vision” in Waldenthat intensifies the play of Thoreau’s subpersonalities, his objective and subjective modesof perception. Thoreau is not a mere observer and recorder of nature but also an encouragerof his part of self that idealizes and contemplates the inner truth of nature. Thoreau’s objectivevision is mostly depicted in his detailed explanations of the external world, namely in thechapter “The Pond,” when he for a while puts aside his personal and poetic subjectivity andadopts the language and voice of a scientist and presents his observations in a commonmanner as in a “natural science textbooks.” In the following excerpt from “The Pond” thisdouble-voicedness is quite evident. Thoreau in reviewing his experience in Walden Pondpresents his detailed study of some of its fish:

Nevertheless, this pond is not very fertile in fish. Its pickerel, though not abundant, areits chief boast. I have seen at one time lying on the ice pickerel of at least three differentkinds: a long and shallow one, steel-colored, most like those caught in the river; a brightgolden kind, with greenish reflections and remarkably deep, which is the most commonhere; and another, golden-colored, and shaped like the last, but peppered on the sideswith small dark brown or black spots, intermixed with a few faint blood-red ones, verymuch like a trout. The specific name reticulatus would not apply to this; it should beguttatus rather (123).

This thorough description of three different kinds of fish inhabiting the Walden Pond remindsreader of the preciseness of scientific explanation that later on is followed by the naturalist’s

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descriptiveness of its reporter when comparing the fishes of Walden, which are “cleaner,handsomer and firmer-fleshed,” to the other nearby Ponds. He continues to report his obser-vations:

You may see from a boat, in calm weather, near the sandy eastern shore, where thewater is eight or ten feet deep, and also in some other parts of the pond, some circularheaps half a dozen feet in diameter by a foot in height, consisting of small stones lessthan a hen’s egg in size, where all around is bare sand (124).

Unexpectedly after this another completely different voice with a quite different tone im-merges:

A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth’s eye; lookinginto which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature. The fluviatile trees nextthe shore are the slender eyelashes which fringe it, and the wooded hills and cliffsaround are its overhanging brows (125).

This description of the lake unravels another voice in Thoreau’s self that announces his po-etic subjectivity. His poetic imagination goes so far that sees the lake as the earth’s eye whilethe trees are its eyelashes and the bulge of the hills and cliffs are its eyebrow. This dialogicalinterplay of the inner voices between the scientific naturalism and the romantic naturalismis the key concept in defining Thoreau’s contemplations, in Bakhtin’s terms, the constantgive and take in a dialogical relation between mind and nature in the form of “inner speech.”

Thoreau being aware of the diversity of his subpersonalities and their unique voiceswithin his own self, knows that each of them is striving to express his own attitudes. He willcome to maturity and growth when he can recognize and accept the existence of these per-sonalities and attempt to discover the so-called “transpersonal self,” that functions as a unifiedentity. So in this case different subpersonalities are merging into an integrative whole to leadhim to his highest level of growth and let him find the ultimate truth of his being.

In his attempt to question and then parody the established ideology of his society and “themass of men” as his main readers, Thoreau adopts the voice of the beholders of this authorialand materialistic world views. These voices come to “envision a dialogicality that will permita free play of diverse, unrepressed voices” (Schueller, 1986: 34). Thoreau creates a counterideology which values democratic and free play of individual opinion against the socialnorms and by arousing “laughter” in Bakhtin’s terms, “carnivalizes” these norms. “In theCarnivalistic life, that is life turned inside out, the laws, prohibitions, and restrictions thatdetermine the structure and order of ordinary, that is noncarnival, are suspended duringcarnival” (Bakhtin, 1973:143). In this sense Thoreau breaks the conventions of languageand thought of totalitarian society and invites his readers to participate in his newly foundedworld—which adheres freedom of thought from any form of final formulation. In “The BeanField” Thoreau pretends to adopt the voice of an agricultural specialist who mostly caresabout the farm and the mercantile activities. He works “from 5 o’clock in the morning tillnoon,” (108) gives instructions of how to “[p]lant the common small white bush about thefirst of June, in rows three feet by eighteen inches apart, being careful to select round andunmixed seed,” (163) and later gives a full account of his income and expenses. But imme-diately after this another voice, again that of Thoreau, merges into the voice of the prudent

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farmer that follows a thoroughly different ideology, the voice that is concerned more withplanting “such seeds… as sincerity, truth, simplicity, faith, innocence and the like” (110).In a dialogic opposition, planting is now changed from the ideology of profit and loss toadvocate instead the ideology of “self-culture.”

This dialogism later on is completely resolved when Thoreau explicitly unmasks himselfand let his other self speaks: “why should not the New Englander try new adventures, andnot try new adventures, and not lay so much stress on his grain…. Why concern ourselvesso much about our beans for seed, and not be concerned at all about a new generation ofmen?” (110) By doing so Thoreau de-authorizes the social language of the America of histime and redefines language in his counter ideology, a “moral reform” in which language isfree of hierarchy. Stanley Cavell (1972), to reaffirm this view refers to Thoreau’s attemptto recreate the “nation’s scripture” and recommends that such writing “must assume theconditions of language as such; re-experience… the fact that there is such a thing as languageat all and assume responsibility for it … until the nation is capable of serious speech again”(33).

In a dialogical relation the communication is expressed through two distinct voices whichmay be in the state of agreement or disagreement. In the case of Thoreau’s double-voicednessthe disagreement of his ideology with that of society is presented in his inner speech withhis authorial voice and his adopted persona of the socially bounded reader which in the endat a very ironic twist the carnivalization of the ideology of society is resolved. This modeof dialogism can be further explained in referring to many examples of direct and indirectquestion and answer in theWalden, “Shall the world be confined to one Paris or one Oxfordforever? Cannot students be boarded here and get a liberal education under the skies ofConcord? Can we not hire some Abelard to lecture to us?” (73) In these rhetorical questionsThoreau challenges the other social voices and attempts to break down the socially encodedstandards. He expresses his disagreement in a dialogic manner to reveal the falsity of whatsociety holds as virtue.

In his most controversial chapter “Society,” Thoreau criticizes those of his readers whoare the “slave-driver” of their selves (4), and later continues his speech when referring tothe “olds,” their experiments and their advises, “The greater part of what my neighbors callgood I believe in my soul to be bad” (4). In a counter argument Thoreau afterwards refersto an internal voice that speaks inside his own self, “I hear an irresistible voice which invitesme away from all that. One generation abandons the enterprises of another like strandedvessels” (7).

In his discussion of “clothes” in chapter “Society” Thoreau explicitly points to thisSHOULD and SHOULD NOT that society in the name of “fashion” has determined for itspeople. He says about his encounter with his tailor:

When I ask for a garment of a particular form, my tailoress tells me gravely, “They donot make them so now,” not emphasizing the “They” at all, as if she quoted an authorityas impersonal as the Fates, and I find it difficult to get made what I want, simply becauseshe cannot believe that I mean what I say, that I am so rash (16).

He wonders and lets the reader read his thought: how “they are related to me”? and asks“what authority they may have in an affair which affects me so nearly?” [original italics].After this inner speech he answers his tailor, without emphasizing the word ‘they” as the

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tailor did, “It is true, they did not make them so recently, but they do now” (16). And finallyin a very explicit form he mocks the cheap norms and empty standards of his society: “Thehead monkey at Paris puts on a traveler’s cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same”(17).

Discussion

Unfinalizability of Meaning: Thoreau in Search of His “Supper Addressee”The dialogicality is closely related to the realization between “logical” and “dialogical” re-lationship. In a logical relationship there is a “definite” and “closed” conclusion while nointerpretation can go beyond the limits of the defined rules of the relationship. In Bakhtin’sdialogical view, however, “consciousness is never self sufficient; it always finds itself in anintense relationship with another consciousness. The hero’s every experience and his everythought is internally dialogical, polemically colored and filled with opposing forces[…] opento inspiration from outside itself “ (Bakhtin, 1973:26). This explanation emphasizes the notionof “unfinalization” and “open-endedness”.3

The concept of “unfinalization” can be fully traced in the time, place and language ofWalden. The “passage of the time” as it is shown in the form of seasonal cycle in everychapter is the “ongoing progression of time.” This timelessness is depicted even in theopenness of the assumed seasonal cycle, while at the end of the text, Thoreau is going toexperience “Spring” and begin a new life. Although Thoreau refers to his younger self andfeels that he has become more experienced comparing to his past self, he does not see hispresent self in a definite time and place to judge and define his past self as a “finalized” and“godlike figure,” so he attributes the quality and process of becoming to his own self; in re-miniscing Walden Pond he says, “it is itself unchanged, the same water which my youthfuleyes fell on, all the change is in me”(128). He accepts his self to be unfinished and the subjectof change. At the end of his contemplation he feels the change in his self and knows thatthis change is to be continued in the future. This dialogical give and take between Thoreau’sself in past, present and future is very noteworthy in his developing self toward self-discovery.He has the courage “to explore the private sea, the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean of one’s beingalone” (212). Untrodden ways to future still lay in front of Thoreau when he eventuallyleaves Walden Pond. Living his life two years near Walden Pond was not his final answerto his ongoing exploration of his self, he remarks in his “conclusion” he leaves Walden since“he has several more lives to live” (213).

Within such a concept of the self as depicted as “a highly dynamic process,” Higgins(1987) distinguishes three different possibilities for “self,” the actual self (by which he refersto what one actually possesses); the ideal self (by which he refers to what one ideally pos-sesses); and the ought self (by which he refers to what one should or ought to possesses).Higgins (1987) explains that the distinguishing point for these dimensions is different kindsof emotional status of self which is aroused by the various external situations.4

3 In taking about Dostoevsky, Bakhtin notes “every thought of Dostoevsky’s heroes feels itself to be a speech inan uncompleted dialogue (27). He continues “the genuine life of the personality can be presented only dialogically,and only when it mutually and voluntarily opens itself.”4 This interpretation can be the justification for the dynamic point of view of the self. Higgins, E.T. (1987) “Self-discrepancy: A Theory Relating Self and Effect.” Psychological Review. 94, 319-340.

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So in this case while the self is deconstructed into diversity of subselves, in Walden atdifferent moments in time and place a specific subself of Thoreau addresses his reader, whois also situated in a different time and place. So speaking these dialogical interactions of thesubselves of the author with each other on the one hand, with the subselves of his reader onthe other hand, creates multiplicity of meaning. This rejection of the notion of fixity that thistime is associated with the language and the text rather than the self itself is another confirm-ation for the “unfinalizability” of Thoreau’s assertions. Derrida in his deconstructive theoryof language challenges “the entire notion of authorship by holding that every text suffersfrom textuality.” In his discussion Derrida points out that: “every piece of writing gets itsmeaning only in the context of the discourse dominant in a particular era” (Hermans &Kempen, 1993:34). His main premise was that different readers read the text in differenttime and place with their own perception of the signifiers that is dominant in the meaningsystem of their own time. Bakhtin in his discussion of the text and language moved fromformalism to deconstruction to identify this “open system.” Although as it was mentionedearlier Thoreau carnivalizes the established language of his society and attempts to redefineit but this redefinition is not an ultimate form since he mostly emphasizes on the free playof language without restricting it to any specific ideology. As far as Thoreau is navigatinghis self in search of “reality”, in Bakhtinian conception, this “reality cannot be grasped inany absolute or final form […] neither textual reality nor other forms of reality have an un-changeable absolute base” (Hermans & Kempen, 1993:35).

Thoreau’s preoccupation with his readers emphasizes the role of the other or possibleaddressee outside the domain of his self. Holquist (2002) states that the tripartie nature ofdialogue bears within it the seeds of “hope.” “In so far as my “I” is dialogic, it insures thatmy existence is not a lonely event but part of a larger whole.” So as claimed earlier the selfof the authors or poets at different time and place may be understood differently as they ad-dress different addressees. They may not find their ideal addressee therefore they are mostlyin the “hope” that outside the tyranny of present there may be an “other” who will understandthem. This will foreclose the possibility of the “significant other” or “supper addressee” thatis “conceived in different ways at different times by different persons” (Hermans & Kempen,1993:38). This can be more elaborated by referring to Thoreau’s reader, present addresseeor the future one—who are capable of understanding and responding to his ideology. Hediscriminates his readers from the very beginning of his speech in the chapter “Society,”

I do not mean to prescribe rules to strong and valiant natures, who will mind their ownaffairs whether in heaven or hell, and perchance build more magnificently and spendmore lavishly than the richest, without ever impoverishing themselves, not knowinghow they live—if, indeed, there are any such, as has been dreamed; nor to those whofind their encouragement and inspiration in precisely the present condition of things,and cherish it with the fondness and enthusiasm of lovers—and, to some extent, Ireckon myself in this number; I do not speak to those who are well employed, inwhatever circumstances, and they know whether they are well employed or not;—butmainly to the mass of men who are discontented, and idly complaining of the hardnessof their lot or of the times, when they might improve them (10).

At times very hopelessly Thoreau confesses that his reader is not a qualified one, demandshis appropriate reader and waits for a visitor that never comes (Walden, 179). Consequently

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Holquist emphasizes the relation between the subject and the object and continues that in a“dialogic world […] I find myself plunged into constant interaction with others and withmyself” (Hermans & Kempen, 1993:39). This is how when Thoreau in his dialogic worldis disappointed with his present readers, addresses his own self, “my thinking for myself”(31) and in a form of even direct question and answers plays a dialogic communication withhis “generalized other.” “Can we not do without the society of our gossips a little while underthese circumstances—have our own thoughts to cheer us?” and immediately after this hebrings a quotation from Confucius to answer his own question, “Virtue does not remain asan abandoned orphan; it must of necessity have neighbors.” And later he elaborates his wayof inner speech by, “with thinking we may be beside ourselves in a sane sense” (90).

Meaning as Signs, Sociolinguistic Nature of Thoreau’s Inner SpeechesIn dialogism meaning emerges through the medium of signs since it is the life expressedthrough the language. This premise will link dialogism to linguistics. Self in this sense canbe analogous to a sign which like a linguistic sign has not an absolute meaning in itself. Themeaning of the self is relative and for its rather precise meaning depends on the “other.”Dialogue in this explanation is itself a differential relationship, the self and the other keepdifferent positions in time and place when communicating each other dialogically. “Themutuality of differences,” according to Holquist, “makes dialogue Bakhtin’s master conceptfor it is present in exchanges at all levels, between words in language, people in society, or-ganisms in ecosystems, and even between processes in the natural world (Holquist, 2002:41).This interplay of differences is comparable to Saussure’s concept of differences and is as-sumed to be due Saussure’s claim of unavoidable social nature of language. In this respectBakhtin’s phenomenology of self/other relationship with its emphasis on social factors, moreincreasingly seems to be related to sociology and linguistics (Holquist, 2002:43). Thus said,Bakhtin affirms that meaning comes about in individual psyche as inner experience and inshared social outer experience through the medium of sign, since in both cases understandingtake place “as a response to a sign with a sign”5 (Bakhtin,1973:28).

According to the above mentioned premises Bakhtin more specifically discloses two basiccategories in his study of dialogue that is very crucial in our understanding of Thoreauvianperspective and voices in Walden, “objective psychology” and “inner speech.” He definesthe former inMarxism and Philosophy of Language (Voloshinov, 1973) as “the psychologywith a new subject of analysis: the psyche not of individual, but of the individual as strainedby the social.” The domain of objective psychology is the study of “the relation of inner toouter speech” in specific time and place. In the case of this study it is rather significant tobear in mind that dialogism lays under all perceptions and is achieved through sign operation,even in higher form of perception that is thinking—a recurrent pattern in the Walden. “Humanconsciousness operates through words… the medium which is the most sensitive and at thesame time the most complicated refraction of governance.” The reader can trace Thoreau’sstream of thought in his inner speeches as a murmuring sound meditating with his own selfand in other times as a form of manifestation loudly presented to a particular audience(Holquist, 2002:51) in a very crucial passage in the chapter “Solitude.” Thoreau confirms

5 For more discussion of Saussureian sociolinguistic theories and its relation to Bakhtin’s theory of Dialogism referto chapter 3, Language and Dialogue, Dialogism.

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the whole spirit of the self/other relation in his writing and refers to his consciousness of thepresence of the imagined other within him and the actual audience outside him:

I only know myself as a human entity; the scene, so to speak, of thoughts and affections;and am sensible of a certain doubleness by which I can stand as remote from myself as fromanother. However intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism of apart of me, which, as it were, is not a part of me, but spectator, sharing no experience, buttaking note of it, and that is no more I than it is you. When the play, it may be the tragedy,of life is over, the spectator goes his way. It was a kind of fiction, a work of the imaginationonly, so far as he was concerned. This doubleness may easily make us poor neighbors andfriends sometimes [italics added] (91).

One form of language that occurs due to inability to mediate between inner speech andsocial dimension of language is “official discourse.” Its beholders consider it as the utopianlanguage so “every one is compelled to speak the same language.” It does not recognizeotherness and in its most extreme form, these “totalitarian discourse,” “abhor differencesand aims for a single, collective self, they assume no other selves rather than their own andthey consider the first pronoun “I” as the normative, therefore, their monological voice isheard in every institution. But while it was fully elaborated the self/other relation in Thoreau’sinterior dialogues is evident in every form of his speech. His inner voice advocates “freedom”of individual from any form of “must” and “ought to.” One is to be free, “be an azad, or freeman, like the cypress”6 (53). Feel “azad” to reject any form of totalitarianism in sociallycoded language, “To act collectively is according to the spirit of our institutions” (74). “Thepath to individual self-government begins with one’s ability to cut oneself loose from dis-tracting social forces and the illusory values they impose” (Lane, 2005:291).

Conclusion: Unfinalized Alleys to “Higher Life”In the context of the aforementioned issues one can detect the roots of dialogism in a socialstruggle in affirming “meaning,” or as Holquist puts in “revolution, civil war, the terror ofthe purges and exile” (2002:39). Thoreau’s two year chosen life in exile is an example ofthe alienated artist that seeks freedom of thought and speech in the society of his time. Hemeditates and contemplates about different issues with his own self, his present reader andhis supper addressee in a form of debate in search of “meaning.” In his last chapter “Conclu-sion,” Thoreau explicitly identifies the purpose of his long meditation inWalden, as Socratessays “to know thyself” (Walden, 203). He explored his self to reach to a unity. As Thoreauwalks home in the forest after the rain in chapter “Baker Farm,” and find the weather cleansedwhile the rainbow is over his shoulders, he hears the voice of his “Good Genius” addressinghim,

Go fish and hunt far and wide day by day—farther and wider—and rest thee by manybrooks and hearth-sides without misgiving. Remember thy Creator in the days of thyyouth. Rise free from care before the dawn, and seek adventures. Let the noon find theeby other lakes, and the night overtake thee everywhere at home. There are no larger

6 This image taken from one of the parables of Gulistan, or Flower Garden, by one of the eminent Persian poets,Sheik Sadi of Shiraz, also advocates for simplicity and freedom. Cypress among all other trees is the most celebratedby God and is called “azad”, since it bears no fruit in any seasons of the year, and even in the absence of continuance,is fresh and blooming. Thoreau promotes: “Fix not thy heart on that which is transitory” (53).

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fields than these, no worthier games than may here be played. Grow wild according tothy nature, like these sedges and brakes, which will never become English bay. Let thethunder rumble; what if it threaten ruin to farmers’ crops? That is not its errand to thee.Take shelter under the cloud, while they flee to carts and sheds. Let not to get a livingbe thy trade, but thy sport. Enjoy the land, but own it not. Through want of enterpriseand faith men are where they are, buying and selling, and spending their lives like serfs(138)

In his later contemplations, Thoreau, after talking about “animal within” one’s self and ad-vocating scrutinizing one’s self to avoid the evil inside—since “the evil that we do livesafter us” (45), he prescribes “goodness is the only involvement that never fails” (145). Butmeanwhile Thoreau reminds that “you must have genius” for charity, since “there is no odorso bad as that which arises from the goodness tainted” (50). He continues by stating thatsubsequently this charity can “hide multitudes of sins” and leads one to discover a “micro-cosm” in one’s own self that is a “true discovery” (52). Then much later in the “HigherLaws,” Thoreau confirms that, “I found in myself, and still find, an instinct toward a higher,or, as it is named, spiritual life, as do most men, and another toward a primitive rank andsavage one, and I reverence them both. I love the wild not less than the good” (140). Thoreauin this sense has come into terms with this level of his own self and seems to achieve his“most original part of himself [his self]” and metaphorically has found the “seeds of a betterlife” (141).

He learned by his experiment that “if one advances confidently in the direction of hisdreams and endeavors the life which he had imagined, […] new universal and more liberallaws will begin to establish themselves around and within him (214). Later he declares thatas one “simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex and solitudewill not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness (214).This idealized selfis seen as a “centralized ego forming a singular unite of mastery and a pluralistic decentralizedmanyness” (Hermans & Kempen, 1993:34). As it is quite apparent in the case of Thoreau,this centralized ego lives in harmony with nature and environment “I found myself suddenlyneighbor to the birds; not by having imprisoned one, but having caged myself near them,”(58) while it has “the other” and the nature as his friend, “Every little pine needle expandedand swelled with sympathy and befriended me” (89). In another register, Thoreau has pro-duced a cohesive and harmonic equilibrium inside his self and outside with his surroundings.

Thoreau aims to share his experience as he says “I do not propose to write an ode to de-jection, but to brag as lustily as chanticleer in the morning, standing on his roost, if only towake my neighbors up” (57). He meant to shed light on the ignored path of self-recognition,“to maintain one’s self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simplyand wisely” (48). Every individual in his own existence is free to hold different ideologiesfrom that of the others to maintain a “higher life.” To look at Thoreau’s inner speeches fromthis perspective, one will find that the seemingly monologicality of Walden is a sheer real-istic dialogism in which heterogeneous inner voices find freedom to utter their own ideologiesat different levels of self/other relation ship: self/nature, self/man and self/generalized other.

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ReferencesBakhtin, Mikhail. Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics. 2nd ed. Transl. R. W. Rotsel. Ann Arbor, MI:

Ardis, 1973.Cavell, Stanley. The Senses of Walden. New York: Viking, 1972.Chodat, Robert. “Games of Circle’s: Dialogic Irony in Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus, Melville’s Moby

Dick, and Thoreau’s Walden.” Diss. McGill U. 1995.Hermans, Hubert J.M. and Harry J.G. Kempen. Dialogical Self: Meaning as Movement. Nijmegen:

Academic Press, Inc., 1993.Higgins, E.T. “Self-discrepancy: A Theory Relating Self and Effect.” Psychological Review 94 (1987):

319-340.Holquist, Michael. Dialogism: Bakhtin and His World. London: Routledge, 2002.James, William. Principles of Psychology (Vol. 1). London: Mcmillan, 1890.Janes, Julian. The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of The BicameralMind.Boston: Houghton

Mifflin, 1976.Lane, Ruth. “Standing ‘Aloof’ from the State: Thoreau on Self-Government.” The Review of Politics

67 (Spring, 2005): 283-310.Mancuso, J.C. and Sarbin, T.R. “The Self-narrative in the Enactment of Roles”. Studies in Social

Identity. T.R. Sarbin and K.E. Scheibe (Eds.). New York: Praeger Publishers, 1983: 233-53.Mead, G. H. Mind, Self and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934.Morris, Pam. The Bakhtin Reader. London: Routledge, 1994.Rowan, J. Subpersonalities: The People Inside Us. London: Routledge, 1990.Sarbin, T.R. (ed.) Narrative Psychology: the Storied Nature of Human Conduct. New York: Praeger

Publishers, 1986.Schueller, Malini. “Carnival Rhetoric and Extra-Vagance in Thoreau’s Walden.” American Literature

58.1 (Mar., 1986): 33-45.Thomas, Owen. Ed., Walden and Civil Disobedience. New York: Norton & Company Inc., 1966.Voloshinov, V.N. Marxism and the Philosophy of Language. New York & London: Seminar Press.

1973.

About the AuthorsForough BaraniForough Barani obtained her Bachelor of Arts Degree in English Literature from GuilanUniversity in Iran in 2005. Her major fields of interest are “Dialogism” and “Dialogical Self”in both modern and contemporary philosophy. She is also interested in the application ofother theories to literature such as psychoanalysis and linguistics. At present she is pursuingher Master of Arts degree in English Literature in University Putra Malaysia. The topic ofher Master’s thesis is ‘The Dialogical Self in Selected American Non-fiction Works’.

Dr. Wan Roselezam Wan YahyaWan Roselezam Wan Yahya is a Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the Faculty ofModern Languages and Communication, Universiti Putra Malaysia. She is involved in sev-eral researches dealing with literature & culture, psychoanalysis & literature, literature inESL, and diasporic literature.

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Literary Art as a Form of Self-Inquiry in Thoreau’s Walden

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