The chapter “Sounds” from Walden highlights the Transcendental motif of revelation and spiritual elevation through direct experience with nature instead of through tradition, as represented by books and literature. As the chapter progresses, Thoreau’s serenity, spiritual elevation and reverence is interrupted by the railroad which after much contemplation, becomes a metaphor for civilization, commerce, and economic drudgery. The railroad becomes an opposing force, a reoccurring interruption that’s piercing whistle interrupts the pastoral transcendental life Thoreau is leading at Walden Pond.
Thoreau dives straight into revelation by direct experience in the opening of “Sounds”. “I did not read books the first summer; I hoed beans”(Thoreau 97). Instead of reading, Thoreau sits serenely, after a morning bath in his doorway contentedly observing the serenity of his garden, noticing the sunlight and listening to the chirping of birds. “Sometimes in a summer morning,having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in the sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a revery…in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sang around…” (Thoreau 97)
In this passage, Thoreau seems like an infant just out of his “accustomed bath”, existing in an entirely sensory state of silent contemplation. His choice in words like bath, birds and sunshine further a feeling of birth, infancy, and beginnings. Later in this passage, Thoreau emphasizes that time, in a societal sense, looses meaning. This can also be likened to infancy as babies have little knowledge of time. “My days were not days of the week, bearing the stamp of the heathen deity, nor were the minced into hours and fretted by the ticking of a clock.”(Thoreau 98)
In contrast to the serenity of Walden Pond, a place where time looses meaning and productivity is measured by “the birds and the flowers”(98), the railroad cuts Thoreau’s pastoral paradise like a knife.The railroad’s presence creates tension and struggle for Thoreau. He struggles to integrate the railroad into his pastoral landscape by likening its qualities to animals or aspects in nature: rattling cars to “the beat of the partridge”(100), an “iron horse” that makes “the hills echo with his snort or thunder”. But ultimately, it is a disruption from him directly and meditatively experiencing nature. This disruption is particularly evident in the way Thoreau describes the railroad’s influence or affect on time.
“The startings and arrivals of the cars are now the epochs in the village day. They go and come with such regularity and precision, and their whistle can be heard so far, that the farmers set their clocks by them, and thus one well conducted institution regulates a whole country.”(Thoreau102)
Earlier in “Sounds”, Thoreau “smiles at his good fortune” as he looses the traditional, production based notion of time. The railroad exists in total contradiction to “contemplation and the forsaking of works”(98). It serves instead to regulate time. It’s influence on time is so great that it has come to define time as “the farmers set their clocks” to its whistle. This description of the trains whistle is so visually effective that one can’t help imagining the frustrated frown forming of Thoreau’s forehead as his quiet gazing at sparrows and chestnut burs is interrupted by the whistle of the train. But for Thoreau it is not just a whistle of a train, but the sound of civilization infringing on his thoughts, interrupting revelation.
You make some great observations here and this will definitely make the beginnings of a good close reading. You might want to think about the way that Thoreau begins the chapter “Sounds,” particularly in that he is setting out his project for this chapter: “We are in danger of forgetting the language which all things and events speak without metaphor, which alone is copious and standard” (78). Thoreau thus wants to have an access to reality that isn’t mediated by printed language or metaphor. However, the paragraphs in this chapter where Thoreau writes about the railroad are some of the most highly constructed, literary, and stylized passages in the whole book. Do you think there is thus a tension between what Thoreau sets out to do and what he actually accomplishes? How is his description of the sounds of railroad similar and different to other sounds that he describes in the chapter? Also, you aptly note that through metaphor he compares the railroad to several animals. But why the specific animals that he chooses? Why does it start as a partridge, then become a hawk, then an iron horse? Lastly, what do you make of the line towards the end of the railroad passage in which Thoreau states, “So is your pastoral life whirled past and away.” How might the sentiment here fit with your reading of the passage? (Also, is there a way in which Thoreau depicts the railroad positively in the passage, and if so, why?)