Thoreau through Cronin's Eyes: A Conquerer

William Cronin's ideas posited in The Trouble with Wilderness, stand largely in opposition to the Romantic wanderlust of good ol' Henry David Thoreau. Cronin argues that the Frontier Myth (or the Garden of Eden vs. harsh "hairy" forest tall tale) reinforces a cruel paradox, stating that the very idea of Wilderness "embodies a dualistic vision in which the human is entirely outside of nature" (80). The reality is, according to Cronin, and I happen to believe him, that man and nature exist concurrently with one another, unless, of course, we seek to destroy it, or hide it away in our sidewalks and behind our titanous, aching dormitories. By thinking of nature as separate entity, a place where men like Thoreau can "shed the trappings of civilization...and thereby [reunify] themselves with a vigor, an independence, and a creativity," (76) we are, in fact, perpetuating a cycle of racism and ugly hubris.

According to Cronin, this fascination with sheltering ourselves in the bosom of the woefully engendered "mother nature" emerges from the fact that we exist in cities which we destroy as well. Industry and capitalism, and Thoreau might agree, are greedy, monstrous enterprises. Yet to seek escape into "untamed" lands and subsequently create the illusion of isolation, while at the same time overlooking the fact that the American Indians who once lived there were eradicated chiefly by God-fearing English folk like Henry T, is equally as misguided as destroying the countryside with smoke-stacks and snaking causeways.

Truly our misconceptions of penetrating for our own leisure and reflection what is perceived as "wild", or, perhaps worse, "virginal" about the woodland sphere that surrounds us (indeed the very notion that Thoreau can somehow be made better, purer, by the time he outside of Concord) overlooks the fact that our ability to evoke that freedom is unquestionably the result of large, large scale genocide. Though Thoreau does touch on the positive social constructs of Native Americans in Huckleberries, stating "the earth and all its productions were common and free to all the tribe" (30) and therefore better than his fellow Concordians and their pillaging ancestors, he does not address the "the removal of the Indian to create an "uninhabited wilderness" (Cronin 79) for us build our respective $28 houses in.

Furthermore, Thoreau's idea that nature "exists for no other end [other than to] make us well" (36) is an incredibly selfish assertion, creating a sense that Thoreau's forest romp/fledgling homesteading venture is really just a masturbatory exercise. Cronin suggests, indelibly, that we should "never [imagine] that we can flee into a mythical wilderness to escape history and the obligation to take responsibility for our own actions" (90). There is a good chance the rest of Thoreau's city-bound career makes a better argument than urging the reader to "suck the marrow out of [nature]" with a "Spartan-like" intensity (19). Hopefully, anyway. Otherwise, I'd say he is a little full of a hot air.