Thoreau And Douglass Vision On Mental Slavery

So an interesting question arises: what exactly did Thoreau and Douglass mean, in “Walden” and “Narrative”, with mental slavery and how should the American public break with it? This essay will, at first, give a general definition of mental slavery. The second step is to compare and contrast Thoreau’s and Douglass’ vision on mental slavery. This essay will use Thoreau’s “Walden” and Douglass’ “Narrative” as primary sources to answer the central thesis. The essay is written from a abolitionist’ perspective. The first step is to explain what mental slavery is. Mental slavery had to do with how people perceived their surroundings and their lives. People’s minds and ideas were being influenced by religion, society and the Constitution, for example.

In his article A ‘Voice from the Enslaved’: The origins of Frederick Douglass’s political philosophy of democracy, Nick Bromell points out that a slave was nothing more than ordinary property (701). Frederick Douglass battled hard to change this perspective, he realised, as Nick Bromwell notes that thought and perspective are strongly connected (718).

One might argue that Thoreau wasn’t a major abolitionist. But when we take a closer look we can see that Thoreau had a perfect understanding of the relation between white and black. Nick Aaron Ford, author of Henry David Thoreau, Abolitionist, refers to the notion that physical slavery was the result of the “moral and intellectual slavery” of the white American (360).

Now let’s take a closer look at Thoreau’s “Walden” and Douglass’ “Narrative” to find out what they thought about mental slavery. Thoreau introduced his vision on mental slavery already in the very first chapter, “Economy.” Namely, that most people live “lives of quiet desperation” (Thoreau 984). This can be interpreted as suffering in silence. People were clearly unhappy about the idea that they were destined to work like their ancestors in order to maintain and multiply possessions and, most of all, the need to be accepted by society. The unhappiness with one’s life, that is mental slavery,

He points out that he saved a runaway slave. Nick Aaron Ford elucidates Thoreau’s vision on slavery, it should be “an anomaly” in a country like America and every man should condemn it (362). Thoreau describes that “restless committed men” do not enjoy the woods. He emphasizes that he dislikes men that follow passable paths (1061). Follow your own path in life and don’t led the institutions determine what you have to do. Now we can see why Thoreau opposed physical slavery, blacks were the ultimate example of absolute un-freedom. But white Americans were also prisoners of their mind because they thought slavery was acceptable.

In “Conclusion”, Thoreau ends his argument in favour of individuality with a lot of good advice. Especially striking is the comparison of a man to a drummer. Thoreau admired people that were individuals, Thoreau argues that if your actions differ from others it might be because you hear “a different drummer” (1151). In the last chapter Thoreau’s style is very convincing, it’s like he’s preaching to a