Body Awareness in Thoreau´S Walden

Contents
1 Introduction
2 Walden
2.1 Thoreau´s search for the inner soul 2.1.1 The three identities and their expressions 2.1.2 Being different
2.2 Progress 2.2.1 The Railroad 2.2.2 Being awake 3 Identity Work today 3.1 Miethling 3.1.1 "Getreue Rebellen" 3.1.2 Patchwork Identity 3.1.3 "Körperliche Suchbewegungen" 3.2 Bette 3.2.1 Body and Power 3.2.2 Body as a rescue point 4 Applying 4.1 Miethling and Thoreau 4.1.1 Thoreau, the "getreue Rebell" 4.1.2 Thoreau´s patchwork identity 4.1.3 Thoreau´s "körperliche Suchbewegung" 4.2 Bette and Thoreau 4.2.1 Thoreau´s body power 4.2.2 Thoreau´s way to his rescue point 5 Conclusion 6 References

1. Introduction
In this paper I will deal with Henry David Thoreau 's book Walden and compare it to certain contemporary writers that are concerned with body awareness. Thoreau makes some notes about his body awareness. These notes are fairly rare, but striking. I will start out with a short description of Walden, its content and intention. I will then try to track down Thoreau 's identity work while staying at Walden and will therefore focus on his identities appearing in the book and a quote he gave on being different.
The second part of the first chapter is concerned with Thoreau 's opinion on progress. I will concentrate on the railroad and his idea of being awake. This is not meant literally, but spiritually.
In the second chapter I will deal with two sport sociologists, who have written about body awareness of teenagers and in how far it is important in finding one 's identity. The first one is Prof. Dr. Wolf-Dietrich Miethling, whose major work concentrates on children 's behaviour in physical education classes. The essay I take into account here is concerned with misbehaviour and reasons for it.
The second author is Dr. Karl-Heinrich Bette. He gives attention to the importance of the body in our society. In his book Körperspuren there are many different aspects of paradoxical body awareness in our culture.
I will focus on the aspects of body and power and on the body as a rescue or fixpoint in today 's society.
In the last part I will compare the conclusions I drew from Walden about Thoreau with what Miethling and Bette have said about body awareness. I will concentrate on each author at a time and find out about similarities.

2. Walden
Walden is a unique book. It is neither a poem nor a novel nor any other genre. It is not even a critical discourse about social matters. It is all of it and nothing of it. It is made up of twenty-eight different chapters each one dealing with a different aspect of Thoreau 's time at Walden Pond. Thoreau spent two years and two month in a hut at Walden Pond, an area near Concord, Massachusetts. His experiences and philosophical ideas are captured in Walden.
What is said to have given him the idea to leave society for two years is the essay "Self- Reliance" by Ralph Waldo Emerson. It is about his transcendental ideas and offers the philosophical ideas that Thoreau puts into practise while staying at Walden Pond. Emerson is also Thoreau 's teacher and role model and the land that Thoreau builds his hut on belongs to Emerson, as well. (cf. The Heath Anthology of American Literature 2002: 1670)
Walden offers insight into many areas of Thoreau 's daily life. The first chapters are more concerned with his motives and intentions and what is needed for the stay. The rest of the book is more concerned with philosophical matters. It follows the seasons, like they happen at Walden Pond and Thoreau experiences spiritual death during winter and rebirth in spring. The main intention of his stay is to live a simplified life and through this finding his inner soul.
2.1 Thoreau 's search for the inner soul
Since Thoreau is a child of his age, he is in search of himself. The American Romanticism was marked by an agitation of thought. The self was important and so one had to find out what this "self" is in the first place.
For Thoreau the way to find out was Walden Pond. Here, far off from the noise and hurry of other people he could listen inside himself.

2.1.1 The three identities and their expressing
The first chapter of Walden, economy, introduces all three of Thoreau 's most striking identities. The first one is that of the experimenter, describing his project and aim and also what other people 's reactions were like. He is a rather moral orientated man, describing simply.
Through his second identity Thoreau wants to illustrate the advantages of a simplified life. For him, simplicity is the only way to search the inner soul. This is clearly a philosophical view. Thoreau has always been regarded as a philosopher as well as an author and poet. But this is only one part of his identity.
The third identity is the craftsman, who informs us about expanses one needs to expect when building a hut and which tools are needed. This craftsmen identity also expresses itself through bodily work. Thoreau is eager to support himself only through himself. This requires work of the body in the very first place. He also reduces his meals from three to one and becomes a vegetarian. Through this he simplifies his life and strengthens body as well as mind.
When we compare these identities we find, that each one matches one of the three parts of a person: body, mind and soul. The craftsman constructs and improves the body. The experimenter is the mind that is writing everything down, planning the project and reflecting everyday occurrences. The philosopher speaks for the soul and is the real searcher of the self. He is the one that combines body and mind through his values and ideals.
(ct.Thoreau, 1697: Walden)
2.1.2 Being different
"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer." (ct.Thoreau, 1697: Walden)
This quote clearly shows that Thoreau tries to be different from all his companions. As an Emersonian scholar, self-reliance, originality and nonconformity are his constant aims. He has several views that some people still share today. Thoreau becomes a vegetarian while living at Walden Pond and explains why. He has sold his gun before leaving to Walden, but remembers how he learned to hunt as a child. He thinks it good to become a hunter and advises his readers to teach their children as well. But the children should become "hunters as well as fishers of men". (Thoreau, 1697: Walden "Higher Laws") This indicates an education for a soul in balance. A fisher of men, as were Jesus´ disciples, would never kill for fun. Hunting and fishing is a way of finding oneself. Finding out, what one wants to be and then leaving gun and fish-pole behind. (ct. Thoreau, 1697: Walden "Higher Laws")
Thoreau has passed this process already. He has found that hunting and fishing is not a thing to do for him. "Animal food", as he calls it, does not nourish him enough. He finds that a diet for everybody should feed body as well as imagination. Here we are back again to his three identities. They all need to be fed in order to survive. The experimenter needs facts and needs to write them down. Every experience made is analyzed. But it is also analyzed and thought through by the philosopher, who is the main identity in the rest of the book. He grasps for deep enlightenments and improvements of life.
The craftsman needs physical food that feeds him and gives him new strength to keep working. The craftsman is also still prominent in the following chapters. He is the one that makes Thoreau aware of his body. All three identities need to be satisfied through the food Thoreau consumes. This makes him a vegetarian. He goes as far as to state, that as long as not everybody would be comfortable in preparing his own meal, meaning not being disgusted by it, we are not civilized. (ct. Thoreau, 1697: Walden "Higher Laws")
Food and drink are essential in order to become a civilized individual. That is what makes him different from other people of his time. They are only interested in philosophical spheres and aims, but not in their very body, the tool, they need.
Water is the only possible drink for Thoreau. A cup of warm coffee is "dashing the hopes of a morning" (Thoreau, 1697: Walden "Higher Laws"), as well as a cup of tea an evening. He is tempted by them, but resists. He keeps is body in shape as well as his mind and soul.
2.2 Progress
Thoreau completely disliked progress, because he was sure that it is only there to pollute the mind. It pulls us off the important things, which is finding one 's soul. Thoreau supported himself through body work and did not want any luxury while at Walden Pond.
2.2.1 Railroad
"If we do not get out sleepers, and forge rails, and devote days and nights to the work, but go to tinkering upon our lives to improve them, who will build railroads?" (Walden "Where I lived and what I lived for")
Thoreau dislikes the railroad as a part of progress, because he fears that it will force people to forget themselves. The railroad will awake the wish to travel and see the world, but that, in turn, will again keep people away from finding their inner self and thus they will get lost.
"The nation itself, with all its so-called internal improvements, which, by the way are all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million households in the land; and the only cure for it, as for them, is in a rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose." (Thoreau, 1697: Walden "Where I lived and what I lived for".)
This is the only solution for him. Simplicity, like he acts it. Only without luxury or any other tool that takes up any kind of attention, we can truly find out who we are. But the nation has already been swept over by all the unnecessary things that progress has brought with it. Thoreau desperately calls upon his fellow Americans to realize how wrong this is and how very important the process of finding the self is. (ct. Walden "Where I lived and what I lived for")

2.2.2 Being awake
"To be awake is to be alive" (Thoreau, 1697 Walden "Higher Laws") is one of the famous quotes from Walden. And it expresses Thoreau 's call for simplicity. He states, that we cannot be kept awake only by mechanical aids, but that we need to be awake ourselves. Only an awaken body can have an awake mind. "Awake" is a metaphor for being actively searching the inner soul. The awake body is the tool for this. Progress lulls us into inactivity and laziness. An active body offers the possibility for the mind to be active as well and thus to be awake. We can only live truly, when we are awake. (Thoreau, 1697: Walden "Where I lived and what I lived for).
Thoreau also criticizes society with to his quote. As he has stated before, he has realized that people are more concerned with money and luxury than with their bodies. But they are also not concerned with morals and standards in their culture. Thoreau calls for a united wake up to work against this. Work the way through mud and dirt of lies and blasphemy, to a steady ground where they can build a "Realometer".(Thoreau, 1697: Walden "Where I lived and what I lived for).

3. Identity work today
Children today have to work very hard to find out who they are and where they belong. Common structures do not longer exist and thus offer no help. Children are completely alone on their way to adulthood. Even parents might not be the right ones to help, because they might be as lost as their children are. But still, finding one 's identity is the most important achievement one should make while growing up. There are many different ways how to make this achievement.
3.1 Miethling
Prof. Dr. Wolf-Dietrich Miethling is a sports-sociologist that is especially interested in the ordinary world of students in physical education lessons. One of his texts deals with undisciplined behaviour of students within a lesson and reasons for it. He identifies problems of today 's children to find their identities. Just like Thoreau when he stayed at Walden. These types of reasons for undisciplined behaviour are equal to some of Thoreau 's problems. He also acted undisciplined in the eyes of his society by living outside of it. (ct. Miethling 1993: 14)
3.1.1 "Getreue Rebellen"
"Getreue Rebellen" describes one stereotype of teenagers. Older people are always dissatisfied with their behaviour and are sure, that everything was better when they were young. Things change over time; but not only things, also standards and values. These changes are the earnings of the "getreuen Rebellen" in every generation. In the course of their development, they realize that they do not agree with some of the existing rules that were made by society. So they start disobeying them. They become rebels. But they are unusual rebels, because they do not try to destroy the existing standards. They want to improve the situation in order to achieve progress. That is meant by "getreu". They are loyal to those who command respect. Without these kinds of teenagers or twens, there would be no progress and thus no improvement of living conditions. (ct. Miethling 1993: 15)
The perfect example is the ´68 generation in Germany. They were dissatisfied with the attitudes of the war generation. They did not want a third world war or another Adolf Hitler, so the only possibility was to turn over all the attitudes their parents had drummed into them. Some were too radical and destroyed. That is not what is meant by "getreue Rebellen" anymore, because they are no longer loyal. But those who had a rational sense for change set the corner stone for today 's society and the freedom that is possible within it. They also brought up the idea of a critical education that shows children how crucial it can be to follow a point of view without critically analyzing it.
3.1.2 Patchwork Identities
Up to the 20th century it was usual for a child to take the same profession as his father. Children did not even have a childhood up to the 18th century and had thus no possibility to unfold the full potential of their personalities. They only reproduced a ready-made lifestyle.
Today this is very different. From earliest childhood on, we learn that we are free to do whatever we please. We are even encouraged to do so, but soon one has to realize, that it is fairly hard to do what one pleases, because one does not know what exactly that is. There are so many different possibilities that we have heard of or learned of, that we are usually thrown off balance.
The only solution to this problem is to pick what we like from all the possibilities. Everything of an identity that we pick becomes a part of our own identity, or of one of our identities. Every human being has different identities, according to the role he or she resides in. A child is different when around its friend from being around his parents or at school.
Identity work becomes a creative act. One needs to try, what suits best for which part of the identity. This is a process that never ends. Old views might become false and seemingly false views might become true. (ct. Miethling 1993: 15-16)
3.1.3 "Körperliche Suchbewegungen"
In the course of this identity finding process, more and more children start expressing themselves through their bodies. This is as well art on the body as shaping the body as controlling it.
The art on the body might be tattoos or piercings. It can also be a specific dress code, such as the protesting punk style. The body expresses the views and attitudes of the scene one belongs to through specific signs that mark the membership. They need to be obviously placed, so that everybody else can identify them at first sight. (ct. Miethling 1993: 16)
Shaping the body has become more and more popular during the last years. Bodybuilding has become an accepted sport and is made use of by ordinary people in a diminished way. Being young and fit is the most wanted thing for every age group. Many younger girls become so fixed on their bodies and their outward appearance that they end up in an eating disorder. This is a result of the "körperliche Suchbewegung", because they identify themselves fully over their bodies. (ct Legenbauer, Vocks, 2005: 7)
The control over one 's body is closely connected with shaping it. The cool guy is usually good looking and has a perfect body as well. Being able to shape one 's body requires hard work and discipline. But also extreme sports that offer threshold experiences demand total control over body and mind. Subway surfing is not an accepted sport, but can be regarded as an extreme sport among teenagers. It offers a threshold experience as well and during this short experience, the body is the key factor.
All of these expressions aim at self-portrayal, self-awareness and attaining self-assurance. (ct. Miethling 1993: 16)
3.2 Bette
Karl.-Heinz Bette is also a sports sociologist, but he is more concerned with the role of the body within society and how it has changed over time. He is also very critically concerned with the disadvantages our society has on body awareness today.
3.2.1 Body and Power
During the European civilization process the close relationship between body and power is more and more abolished. Physical violence becomes less important in order to keep power within a territory. Modern Times center the wherewithal physical power to political authorities like police and military. Using physical power without authorization becomes prohibited by law and punishment is executed on those who do it still. Through this development even small and weak people can achieve rights. The body itself is thus no longer of great importance, if one wants to gain power, because occupant and instrument of power bear no relation to the body anymore. (ct. Bette 1989: 20)
The Body also loses importance in regard to punishment. During the middle ages, the body was the medium that punishments were done to. The tortures were held openly, so that everybody could see the body that had done the punishable act. Everybody knew who had done what and also knew what the punishment for the crime was. Today things are fairly different. The culprit serves his sentence in privacy. Nobody knows what happens to him first hand. Usually, the public doesn 't even know who is punished for what. Identities of culprits are kept secret and underage criminal trials are not even open for the public. (ct. Bette 1989: 20)
In some areas the body is even substituted. The industry uses machines rather than a human being to do work. The body has not enough power to work twenty-four hours, seven days a week. A machine can. It is as far today, that the microchip industry has to protect the chips they produce from human beings. One single dust particle could cause a shortage within the extreme small circuitry.
Technology substitutes the body in recreating life. Babies can be cloned or "made" within a laboratory. A human body has become completely unnecessary. (ct. Bette 1989: 21-22)
But, of course, there are still areas in which the body is not dismissible from one 's thought. Social matters, such as physical presence or mutual perception cannot be experienced without a body. It is also not possible, to separate body and mind, so that humans are only free floating brains without a body. Communication needs the body to express precisely what one wants to say.
But also official organisations, formal functional areas and society itself needs the body. Politics, economy, science, family, law, art, education, health and sports cannot be separated from the body. Each section requires physical actions that cannot be fulfilled without it. So humans take their bodies for granted and treat them like they want, push them always to further achievements and more efficiency. The body has to strike back. It has a power of its own and uses it. Psychological illnesses and stress experiences are the result. (ct. Bette 1989: 25)
3.2.2 Body as fix- point
The body just experiences a valorization. It has become more important to secure the individual actions and experiences of a human being. People have realized that it is the only thing that can intercept the consequences of society or express protest against it. This is only possible, because society identifies its members or outcasts more and more over physical appearance. The body upgrades forms of non-verbal communication. It can be regarded as a tanned status symbol as well as an act of protest or a "fit trimmed, highly efficient tool to cope with stressful experiences." (Bette 1989: 64)
This results in a loss of "spacial aura". What is meant here is that the blurry mass in front of a train window can no longer be identified as trees and bushes and a river. These things can only be seen when the speed is choked. Slowliness, caused by body action is key. Travelling by foot opens up the spacial aura again. The countryside can be discovered so slowly that the eye is able to catch every obstacle individually. The body is then the acting part. It needs this recovery from time to time to stay healthy, as was mentioned above already. Slowliness becomes a luxury not everybody is able to achieve. Both extremes are constantly expanded. The body is in so far important as it calls for the slow parts in life, in which one can become aware of one 's body again. But travelling is as much a necessity in our daily life as time. Only by travelling fast one can save time, so travelling will become faster and faster. (ct. Bette 1989:91ff)
The only fix-point left in this expansion is one 's own body. It is the only tool that carries us where our mind wants to go.

4. Comparing Thoreau and the contemporary
Thoreau was too much ahead of his time and so lived a new, individual life that equalled Emerson 's expectations of a self-reliant human being. Today Thoreau would be nothing special. Everybody lives his life individually and tries to be unique. It is thus not amazing to find that Thoreau had much the same problems teenagers have today, when they try to find themselves.
4.1 Miethling and Thoreau
Miethling has offered three aspects of identity work that children have to run through these days. Thoreau has done equal things during his stay at Walden, but has come to different conclusions.
4.1.1 Thoreau, the "getreue Rebell"
Thoreau is the paradigm of a "getreuer Rebell". He rebels against the values of his society by leaving it and writing a book about how to do it differently. A "getreuer Rebell" does not leave his society alone without naming the deficits. He will act against them. "Simplify, simplify" is one of Thoreau´s most mentioned quotes and was stated in 1854! This clearly shows that he has moved something. He also writes about being awake and through this alive. Realizing, his society is on a turning point in history, forces him to show them an alternative to the fast moving progress in only one direction. The loss of people´s awareness of their souls and bodies frightens him. With Walden he starts a campaign against a life of luxury and promptitude by living a slow and simple life himself.
4.1.2 Thoreau 's patchwork identity
Although Thoreau is clearly against progress, he has already been affected by it. During the 19th century it was no longer necessary to follow the father 's occupation. So Thoreau went to a college and decided to rebel against society. But through this he created a progress of thinking himself. And he was forced to build a patchwork identity. As we have seen in 2.1.1, he has different identities while or rather because of living at Walden Pond: the craftsman, the experimenter and the philosopher. All of them are necessary to survive there.
Even though Thoreau is pushing progress through his actions, he is strongly against it for a reason. He had the opportunity of knowing which identity parts to chose. An opportunity many children of his age until today did not have.
The railroad is a good example for it. He mentions it as a useless thing, because people should be more interested in themselves. Thoreau has realized the disadvantages of fastness early. It is clear for him that the wish for travelling is only created by the possibility of travelling. Applying this to identity search, there is only a wish for every opportunity possible if there is a possibility.
Our lives today would be far easier, if things were simpler. Thoreau has realized this and we should take this into account as well as his call for individuality.
4.1.3 Thoreau 's "körperliche Suchbewegung"
Thoreau wants to be different from the rest of his society, because he cannot identify with them. His goal is to support himself completely independent from others. To be successful, he needs to keep his body in shape. It is his tool to express and act out his ideas.
Being different from others is a very important part of identity work. Without realizing that one has an individuality, finding out about the own identity is impossible. In the curse of this process, children today usually express rebellion through their bodies, like the punk movement still does today. Thoreau rather cares for his body by becoming a vegetarian and not drinking anything else than water. Simplicity is not only a way of living; it becomes a lifestyle for him. Through this he has found his soul and its divinity. Walden can be regarded as some kind of guidebook for everybody who finds himself as lost as Thoreau was before living at Walden Pond.

4.2 Bette and Thoreau
Bette and Thoreau would have been brilliant conversation partners, because they share the same opinions, at least concerning the body.
4.2.1 Thoreau 's body power
Thoreau is in complete dislike of progress, as we have heard before. His main goal is to support himself through his own work. He shares many ideas a lot of people still have today, because they were substituted by a machine. For Thoreau machines are evil things, because they stop us from activity and thought. Has one got a machine for oneself one will become dependent on it, because one has gotten used to it. Thoreau does not want to be dependent on anyone or anything.
One important thing mentioned by Bette is recognized by Thoreau as well: body and mind cannot be separated. Progress has no influence on this either. There are no free-floating brains that do not need a body and it is unlikely to happen in the near future. The body needs to nurish the brain in order for the mind to work.
Thoreau is searching for the divine inner soul and in the course of this has to achieve divinity of his body as well. He does not eat meat and drinks only water. Through this his body is cleaned and his mind is no longer charged by toxins caused by unhealthy food and drinks.
This also makes him different from other people of his time. Being different is an important stepping on his way to the divine self. The divine self makes an individual be individual and individuality is again caused by differences. The body is closely connected to difference. Nobody looks exactly like somebody else. There are always differences. Our body is what makes us different. Thoreau gains power over his body by shaping it. He has thus power over his mind as well, which helps him find himself.

4.2.2 Thoreau 's way to his fix- point
The fastness of our society has developed over many years. Thoreau has been long sighted by criticising this already during his lifetime. His call for simplicity and awakeness are very actual today. Bette has mentioned fastness as a cause for psychological illnesses. His description of the blurry mass in front of a train window matches Thoreau 's idea of the railroad. He also thinks that it keeps people 's minds from what is right in front of them: they themselves. They are only watching the distance, representing what is to come and what they can achieve. Simplicity and awakeness pull the attention back to here and now. The distance becomes less important.
A movement to care for the body and thus the mind has opened up during the past years. Wellness and fitness are of special interest for today 's society. Here slowliness is cultivated, just like Thoreau did when at Walden Pond.
This awakening is central for us today. We should wake up and realize that we have a body, a mind and a soul, that all need caring. Simplicity and slowliness are key to this. Luxury calls for more achievements and as a result more stress. People need to pull themselves back in order to find themselves and what is important for them to be confident and happy.

5. Conclusion
This research paper has shown me a lot of insight in our society and how actual our problems were already during the American Renaissance; although not everybody might have experienced them then, but at least those who were ahead of their time.
I have also become more aware of my body and its function within society. I knew in advance that beauty is the major indicator for sympathy and success, but I have now realized how dangerous this can be. It is important to realize these problems as a teacher and to make it topic in the classroom. Thoreau offers the material for this.
Thoreau seen in comparison to two German sports sociologists seemed a little odd when I first started reading about them. But they are not far away from each other. The only difference between Miethling and Thoreau is the separation from society. Miethling´s children live within society, Thoreau outside of it. And still they share the same problems and come to similar conclusions.

6. References
Bette, Karl- H. 1989. Körperspuren. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter
Lauter, Paul, ed. 2002. The Heath Anthology of American Literature volume 1. 4th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Legenbauer, Tanja & Vocks, Silija. 2005. Wer schön sein will muss leiden? Göttingen: Hogrefe.
Miethling, Wolff-D. 1993. „Unterrichtsstörungen" Materialien zum Seminar Disziplin im Sportunterricht 14-16.
Thoreau, Henry- D. Walden

References: Bette, Karl- H. 1989. Körperspuren. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter Lauter, Paul, ed. 2002. The Heath Anthology of American Literature volume 1. 4th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. Legenbauer, Tanja & Vocks, Silija. 2005. Wer schön sein will muss leiden? Göttingen: Hogrefe. Miethling, Wolff-D. 1993. „Unterrichtsstörungen" Materialien zum Seminar Disziplin im Sportunterricht 14-16. Thoreau, Henry- D. Walden