Walden

The narrator's depressed state is once again revealed, as it was momentarily in "Sounds," by the forlorn hooting of owls in the night. Yet, note that the narrator is struggling to overcome his melancholy. This is indicated when, at the same time that the owls are droning their mournful tones, the circling geese respond with their happier tones (recall that flying birds signify spiritual elevation). The narrator is not surrendering to his "winter" state of mind, but he is becoming anxious, as is indicated by his description of the symbol for his self, Walden Pond. His restlessness is depicted when he tells us: "I . . . heard the whooping of the ice in the pond . . . as if it were restless in its bed and would fain turn over — were troubled with flatulency and bad dreams." That he is spiritually "low" is shown by the rest of the chapter, in which there are no touchings of heaven and earth, no mystical unions with nature and the divine — in short, no signs of the contentment that characterized the spring and summer chapters. Only once is there a truly optimistic note sounded, and that is when the "dropsical" rabbit suddenly reasserts the continuing vitality of nature that survives beneath the appearance of death. As in the case with the drowsy owl in the previous chapter, the narrator is again taught by nature that he need not spiritually die during his psychological "winter."