“Ktaadn” Thoreau’s Culture Shock
For anyone who has read Thoreau’s “Life in the Woods” Ktaadn seems to be written by a different person. “Life in the Woods” is written by an author so full of himself he thinks of himself as being better than everyone else around him, he values nature over all things and is extremely philosophical in his musings and above all considers nature as a thing that must be protected from man. However in Ktaadn there is very little in the way of philosophy and Thoreau means quite literally what he says as there are few hidden layers and he begins to understand that nature is not weak rather it is the mistress of her domain and it is instead man that is weak.
One thing he does do is give a personality to nature, he paints it first as a mother correcting her children from going to where they were not meant to go and helping to lead them to where she believes they belong.
