Brief Notes on the Structure of Walden:
A Few Organizing Principles
According to Adams and Ross in Revising Mythologies (1988), "Walden has two major climactic sequences, framed by an introduction and a conclusion" (178). The first culminates in "The Ponds" (chapter 9) and the second in "Spring" (chapter 17).
2. By times of the day.
3. Accounts of excursions in summer and fall give way to the solid block of winter: "Winter Visitors," "Winter Animals," "The Pond in Winter". The radius of experience is thus contracted.
4. The idea of doubling: the air and water of the pond, for example. Thoreau extends this to the structure, as well, since the chapters are doubled:
"Winter Visitors" "Winter Animals"
6. Note also the imagery of mining, digging, fishing, surveying, viewing, cultivating--in short, of extracting and refining truth.
7. Note also Emerson's ideas in this work, among them