Analysis of the "Conclusion" of Thoreau's WaldenThe chapter titled "Conclusion" is a fitting and compelling final chapter to Thoreau's Walden. Throughout Walden, Thoreau delves into his surroundings, the very specifics of nature and what he was thinking about, without employing any metaphors and without including any of his poignant aphorisms. However, among these sometimes tedious sections come some spectacular and thoroughly enjoyable interludes of great and profound thought from a writer who has become enormously popular in modern America. Its growing popularity over contemporary favorites like Emerson in our modern age comes from Thoreau's call for an "ideological revolution toward simplification" in our lives. This concept and feeling is in extreme opposition to the way we actually live our lives today. More and more people are deprived of spiritual development and cultivation of mind and body. Often the only time people think about their own spirituality and soul is in church or when thinking about their god or religion. The truth is that there is much more to look at, marvel at, and worship than just an image and idea of ​​God in the mind. Thoreau, a man who believed in God himself and who alludes to him several times in Walden, lets us know and see that there is much more to the world that deserves deep thought and respect: everything that Earthly nature has to offer. Thoreau's "Conclusion" is an excellent and appropriate conclusion to this great work which teaches us so much. Departing from the structure of the rest of the journal, the final chapter does not move through intermittent periods of dry description and then bursts of flavor. philosophical ideas - the last chapter is one of... middle of paper...... ning star. The first sentence of this statement presents a paradox that at least makes us see things from a different perspective (no pun intended), and in the second sentence, Thoreau says that a new day only comes to those who are sufficiently alive and conscious to receive it. Perhaps there is not as much deep meaning as we might be tempted to understand in Thoreau's last four lines. It seems to me, however, a very fitting conclusion to a book that has its roots in nature and its ongoing processes, while using that foundation to build a philosophical and abstract castle in the sky. He rooted the basis of the castle in the world directly around him, in which he immersed himself daily, and in his concept of a supernatural force in that same world, his God. Work cited Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. Walden and Other Writings of Henry David Thoreau. Ed. Joseph Wood Krutch. New York: bantam, 2001.