Walden begins with the narrator's explanation of why he chose to address himself to his audience in the first person singular voice. "In most books, the I, or first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the main difference. We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first person that is speaking. I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well." This declaration is immediately understandable in terms of Thoreau's strategy for his book. Thoreau desires Walden to have a forceful impact on society. His narrator will be explaining the rich changes in his life and how superior his life is when compared with that of the average American. He will explain how he achieved such a marvelous life, hoping to convince the reader to improve his own life. In doing this, he may become liable to the charge of hyper-egotism or smugness. The narrator may be judged a braggart by the reader, and Thoreau counters this possibility by having his narrator immediately admit that his life is the subject at hand. Later the narrator almost deferentially tells his reader that "unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience." Thus Thoreau further attempts to gain sympathy and a degree of empathy from the reader by creating a narrator who is almost reluctant to tell his unusual history.
There is, however, a more sophisticated level of meaning in the narrator's early comments about himself and his story. In emphasizing his use of the "I" voice, the narrator focuses the reader's attention on what is the primary subject of Walden: the subjective entity, the inner being, the self that will experience spiritual rebirth and growth at Walden Pond. Natural scenery, social criticism, economic and political theory — all of these have a prominent place in Walden, but all are subservient to the book's core: the quest to realize the "I" voice's vision of an ideal existence. The narrator moves through the objective, external world, but the real focus of the book is on the internal, subjective world of the narrator's self, or soul, as it moves toward spiritual fulfillment and ecstasy.
