“By the words, necessary of life, I mean whatever, of all that man obtains by his own exertions, has been from the first, or from long use has become, so important to human life that few, if any, whether from savageness, or poverty, or philosophy, ever attempt to do without it.”
Thoughts on “Sounds”
Again—please feel free to comment upon any of these questions on our blog.
1.) On the first page of the essay ‘Sounds’ HDT writes: “We are in danger of forgetting the language which all things and events speak without metaphor, which alone is copious and standard.” Do you think this is true—whey have we forgotten this language? With that being said, I think of how shocked some of you must have been during Common Period on Tuesday when the man said, ‘The drum has its own language.”
2.) Why is the need for being ‘forever alert’ a necessity? How does nature teach us this essential truth of life?
3.) What does HDT say about the process of cleaning his house? Where does he put his belongings and how does he say they look in this setting? Perhaps, you should try this exercise in order to see if HDT’s suggestion has merit.
4.) When was the last time you heard birds at Berwick Academy? Why did you hear them? Are they not always around or do we just fail to notice them? With that being said, I see birds everyday—I wonder if you do, and I wonder if you are thinking about what they are currently telling us about nature or what essential fact of life they are driving in the corner for us to examine?
5.) What is one of the mechanical sounds HDT constantly hears and what are his thoughts about this sound?
6.) HDT writes: “Now that the cars are gone by and all the restless world with them, and the fishes in the pound no longer feel their rumbling, I am more alone than ever.” What is the restless world, who belongs to this world, and why is it restless? And oh yeah, I ask again—is HDT alone?
7.) How do the sounds of the birds tell us what time it is better than any bell tower? What are the birds HDT talks about in ‘Sounds?” What does he say about each one?
8.) Near the end of the essay—HDT rolls out the knowledge grenade: “It would put nations on the alert.” What would put nations on alert and why would it have this impact?
Good luck—again, I ask, what else can I do to help you?
10 comments:
"What is one of the mechanical sounds HDT constantly hears and what are his thoughts about this sound?"
He hears the rail cars going by on a daily basis. He does not, however, listen to the mechanical sounds they care to make. He believes that "[Commerce] is very natural in its methods withal".
What does he hear as the cars pass by off in the distance?
"And hark! here comes the cattle-train...whirled along like leaves blown from the mountains by the September gales...the mountains do indeed skip like rams and the little hills like lambs".
He knows it's the rail car, and yet he hears these worldy sounds, so akin to the natural essence of life that he hears so often by his cottage. It is this sense of connection between the civilization of hulking metal rail cars and nature that can only be identified through sound.
He has been living in solitude for so long, and has become so attuned to the pitch of the world and its spirit that he simply refuses to acknowledge the sounds of steel. His intellectual being will not be killed by the machine.
And I close with this passage:
"What's the railroad to me?
I never go to see
Where it ends.
It fills a few hollows,
And makes banks for the swallows,
It sets the sand a-blowing,
And the blackberries a-growing...
but I cross it like a cart-path in the woods. I will not have my eyes put out and my ears spoiled by its smoke and steam and hissing".
Are they not always around or do we just fail to notice them?
Henry David Thoreau escapes into the woods to find what has always been there, what society has neglected to truly see and hear being caught up in the unrest of life. When Thoreau finally separates himself from society he begins to see Nature at its most genuine moments, as he observes “the tantivy of wild pigeons, flying by twos and threes athwart [his] view” (190). It is this Nature that has been trumped by the speed and monstrosity of the modern world, which has given the people a schedule to live by; making it impossible for them to notice the gift Nature is giving us. Nature is always around us, creating its daily sounds and sights, but this idea of the machine and that “We have constructed a fate, an Atropos, that never turns aside.” (193) has given people reason to let Nature pass by them. Thoreau’s objective is to make this unseen beauty apparent to society, and show people that there is another whole world out there we just have to go and find it. He pleads to his readers to find the simplicity of life that he’s found, and to discover that “vast and undeveloped nature which men have not recognized.” (198). From his isolation Thoreau can observe this nature with open eyes, and he can see what society is missing and the difference between these two separate worlds.
Jordan Sanford
5.) What is one of the mechanical sounds HDT constantly hears and what are his thoughts about this sound?
Henry David Thoreau constantly casts off the interrupting sounds of the society around him even though he finds them comforting. With the sounds of the village around him Thoreau has the notion of importance with “The startings and arrivals of the cars” which “are now the epochs” (sounds 153) of the day. Thoreau has always had an impression that the sounds of the village beside him are dreadful and that they are harmful to his “experiment” (where I lived, and what I lived for) in the nature but “I cross it [railroad] like a cart-path in the woods. I will not have my eyes put out and my ears spoiled by its smoke and steam and hissing” (sounds 159). Even though he denies that way of life he finds himself, “more alone than ever” (sounds 159). At times he finds the sounds of society to even be favorable; he even became, “acquainted with their habits” (160). Even stubborn Thoreau has accepted the life style of society in his little way.
Question 2
In “Sounds,” Henry David Thoreau explains the need of how being “forever alert” is an essential truth of life. We have to question as humans how we are going to reach this alert state of mind. Thoreau thinks “No method [nor discipline] can supersede the necessity of being forever on the alert” (145) as he says that the only way one can be fully alert is by focusing and trying to stay on the alert. If one is alive, how does that mean if they are truly and fully alert? Thoreau even questions how many people that he has met who are truly alive. “To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face” (116) being awake than merely living with eyes open. The answer is one cannot just travel through the motions of life without thought. The question now unravels more as the how is the true way of living fully alert. We must all think, leads to this as well as us living for today. We cannot let the actions simply pass, for being enough. From here on out, we have to process our lives in the correct manner “We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn” (116) this is the time were we must let go of all distractions and only use proper recourses to find ourselves alert in our everyday life.
We hear birds, but few listen. The last time I heard birds at Berwick had to have been a week or so ago while taking one of our ‘class’ walks. That was to me, a wake-up call that I personally was in need of for quite some time. I would argue that, because we are so occupied with other tasks, and too busy during the day, we fail to see the point in listening. If one were to take the time to listen, they may reach the realization that Birds are in a sense, the Herald’s of Time and the Beauty of Nature itself. To understand the reality one must understand the simplicity of birds. If you listen, they will teach you what is unknown. “I sat in undisturbed solitude and stillness while the birds sang around or flittered noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling at my west window, or the noise of some traveler’s wagon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time.” Thoreau illustrates that birds are an addition to the solitude rather than a distraction. Another way of looking at it is the story of Noah’s Ark. the Dove (bird) symbolizes Hope and Peace in times of hardship. Birds are the centerpiece of understanding our place in Nature. Birds are our warning sign, and most of us seek to avoid listening to what they have to share. We aren’t listening to the truth.
Birds will chirp and squawk almost every day at Berwick Academy, most days I can hear them, but I rarely listen to them. In my opinion these are two things which are completely different than one another. It is true that for both you need your ears to hear them, and then your brain to recognize the noise as a bird, and not any other animal, but other than this there isn’t much else that is similar. These birds, who are constantly around, who outnumber us in their population size, aren’t listened to very often. I personally am more concerned when walking outside from class to class with what is going on in my life, or in my friends lives than what the birds have to say. I don’t think that this is an uncommon attribute in high school students. Thoreau’s outlook on birds in nature is opposite of mine, he listens to them, and loves them. He says “I rejoice that there are owls” pg 100 and “I thought it might be worth the while to keep a cockerel for his music, merely as a singing bird.” Pg 101 Personally I am scared of birds, and listening to one make noise all day long wouldn’t be something I find enjoyable. If you listen carefully enough and pay enough attention the birds are telling us that we are disrupting their peace, and their homes. They fly around in panic when we drive into paved parking lots and into our driveways which were once their homes of lush trees. We have taken over their world.
In Sounds, Henry David Thoreau decides to pursue a life where he is unable to experience the daily activities and sounds of society in order to find the “essential facts of life“ (74). Through his absence from society he has the ability to hear sounds such as “the rattle of railroad cars” (92-93) and see “hawks circling about [his] clearing” (92), which are actions that normally go unnoticed. Often times, people are too wrapped up in the “trouble or anxiety” (13) of their life to actually realize that it is an “advantage to live a primitive and frontier life” (14). In modern society one doesn’t experience the sounds of nature, but instead are always in competition of what a person has, who has more, and how much of it they have. We take advantage of nature when we should be respecting it, because when all our material possessions are gone, only nature is going to be there for us. Is it really necessary to “live in such hurry” (76) and “waste life” (76), when all that is needed is to take two minutes out of our lives and look at the birds, hear their sounds, and realize their true beauty.
What is one of the mechanical sounds HDT constantly hears and what are his thoughts about this sound?
Thoreau has been able to focus on the nature that he is engulfed in, and has had time to listen to all of the sounds that it provides. No matter how much Thoreau is isolated he still is never completely alone. Mechanical America is still always present because the whistle of the locomotive penetrates my woods summer and winter, sounding like the scream of a hawk sailing over some farmer's yard”. The train that passes on the edge of his woods is always present. He can still hear the sound of America changing and traveling from one place to the next, expanding. Thoreau is shaken by “when the iron horse make the hills echo with his snort like thunder, shaking the earth with his feet, and breathing fire and smoke from his nostrils”. He describes the train as a monster as if the hills are shaking because they hear this “iron horse” rolling through. It is as if he is trying to warn that this beast is making the earth shake, and eventually will take it over. Thoreau is living in nature, but is still able to hear the sounds of America changing all around him.
What is the restless world, who belongs to this restless world and why is it restless?
The ones that are restless are the ones that continue moving without stopping to see what surrounds them. The people who can’t hear the birds because they are too busy focusing on the places they are going instead of the places they are at the moment. The restless follow the crowd, never straying from that straight line that they are traveling on. They are never alone, never by themselves, with their own minds able to think or discover. They keep on moving because they think that they will find their thoughts within that straight line; the thoughts that will connect people and allow them to work together, not only with themselves, but with the things that surround them. “The whistle of the locomotive penetrates my woods summer and winter, sounding like the scream of a hawk sailing over some farmer’s yard, informing me that many restless city merchants are arriving within the circle of the town or adventurous country traders from the other side” (109). This sound drains out the birds song and the trees cry and replaces it with the sound of the people, the sound of one’s restless body. No matter how far we travel we won’t find our answers at that destination until we discover the things that surround us at the place we started from. Our restlessness forbids us from thinking together, from combining our thoughts and creating a thought that is greater than two people. Until we are alone, by ourselves with our own minds will we find true thought and be able to combine those thoughts with others to create something better. We give into this restless world; the people that follow this red line succumb to this restlessness. We don’t move off this red line because restlessness has taken over our body’s it has allowed us to lose ourselves, therefore forbidding us from ever being alone. This restlessness has silenced our surroundings and allowed the voice of the restless to ring in our ears until we go back to take in the surroundings that have raised us.
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