I am writing this letter in response to the excerpt from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden that was recently included in your newspaper The Dial II. After reading the excerpt, I spent time analyzing the different philosophies that Thoreau portrayed in his essay and I came to the conclusion that I agree with some of his concepts but disagree with most. First off at the beginning of the essay, Thoreau states that “as long as possible live free and uncommitted. It makes but little difference whether you are committed to a farm or county jail.” I partially disagree with this quote because I think it is important that I commit myself to different tasks and duties in order to hold myself accountable.
2. Thoreau refers to civil disobedience not merely as a right but as a duty to emphasize the need for individual to have the capability to defend their honest thoughts. As it states, “I think we should be men first, and subjects afterwards” (Thoreau 941). Thoreau wishes for the individuals in society to be able to preach their truth, even if it means to display non-conformity to the government expressing unjust laws. 4.
“The Birthmark” and “Walden” are a dark romantic and a transcendentalist text. One common element is that they both have the idea of knowledge being important. The first one says, “lived a man of science, an eminent proficient in every branch of natural philosophy...make new worlds for himself” (Hawthorne 2). Learning new concepts in science expands Aylmer’s world tremendously.
This could just mean that when the pond freezes, it can support animals to stand on it, but it could also mean that when the pond freezes, it loses its way for providing life and death and provides a bridge for creatures to travel across and to help them get to their destination quicker. Finally, when Thoreau says, “Perchance the snow covers it to an equal depth, and it is not to be distinguished
Individuals lay the foundation of America. The Founding Fathers of this unique nation broke their allegiance with Great Britain to create an improved governing body. They desired an individual-centered authority as opposed to Britain’s monarchy, which ruled with tyranny. These Founding Fathers experienced a neglectful democratic monarchy that cared little about the ethical treatment of its people. The domineering actions of Britain challenged these historic individuals to form a new cultural identity.
Civil Disobedience I hereby say that student loans is something that should not be dragging educated people down. We cannot allow the for-profit colleges and the banks to follow behind students and collect their wealth. “Everyone deserves a quality education. We need to come up with a better way to provide it than debt and default”(Taylor). Education should not vanish.
Pond Scum, by Kathryn Schulz, is a critique on author Henry David Thoreau and his ideas on society and nature. Schulz uses anecdotes, strong word choice, and direct quotations to criticize Thoreau, and the ideas written in his novel Walden. Schulz starts her essay with a powerful anecdote about the tragic story of a group Irish immigrants who drowned at sea while trying to reach the United States. She then quotes a Massachusetts native who dispassionately claimed that the wreck was “beautiful”.
The poet focuses on the clouds, and in the end regrets his failure to catch fish. Though I’m not sure this is the message Thoreau had in mind while writing this part of Walden, I assumed the exchange was a metaphor for distraction and procrastination. It has happened numerous times during my sophomore year that I have had a great task at hand, such as an AP European history exam the next day, and I get distracted with some interesting piece of news or video I find on the internet, only to realize at midnight that I have not even begun to study, similar to how the poet regret not catching any fish. Thoreau spends a large part of this chapter focusing on the war between the ant colonies. Specifically, he writes about how similar this war was to the way that we think about wars, with all the ants putting forth their strongest effort to survive.
Henry David Thoreau committed a crime in the name of civil disobedience and thus for such disobedience was imprisoned. Henry David Thoreau took a stand for what he believed, his sacrifice was significant for these 3 reasons. First, Mr. Thoreau had strong moral values which made him oppose slavery and the Mexican American war. Secondly, Thoreau’s act of civil disobedience was a powerful statement in which he peacefully refused to pay his poll tax. Finally, Mr. Thoreau willingly accepted the consequences of his actions in order to prove his point.
yet he composes that he is truly never alone in light of the fact that he generally has the sweet organization of the regular world. On the other hand, he captivates numerous visitors in his lodge, once in a while maybe a couple at a time and here and there in gatherings of handfuls. Moreover, he lives not in the wild however on the edge of a lake near to the town, which he visits from time to time. American History Walden Pond where Thoreau lived for more than two years may seem isolated but calculating the distance, it is only a mile away from the center of Massachusetts which is known for the famous “shot heard around the world” which started the American Revolution.
Thoreau, in the passage Where I Lived, and What I Lived For, utilizes distraction as a metaphor for unnecessary things by using the overall theme of water. He begins this idea by urging people with “let us rise … without perturbation.” The joining phrase “let us” in the sentence suggests how we should live. In this context, perturbation means a deviation from a system which usually is caused by an outside force. He says that we should live without being distracted or “deviated” from our regular lives by unnecessary things.
Transcendentalism was a movement that began in the early 1830s in the eastern united states. The people who were a part of this movement are usually thought of as crazy, and are known for their spiritual connection to nature. Many transcendentalists from the time wrote about their spiritual journeys, how there were responding to the world they are living in, and how they were looking to change society. Some well known authors include Henry Thoreau, Ralph Emerson, and Walt Whitman. These men have all been quoted multiple times on their transcendentalist drives in their writing.
In Walden, written by Henry David Thoreau, the author expresses the immense longing that we, as human beings, need to give up our connection to our ever-growing materialism in order to revert back to self-sufficient happiness. In Walden, the reader is able to infer that Thoreau feels as if we are becoming enslaved by our material possessions, as well as believes that the study of nature should replace and oppose our enslavement, and that we are to “open new channels of thought” by turning our eyes inward and studying ourselves. Thoreau feels that we are becoming enslaved by our material possessions. As stated in the chapter “In the Where I Lived, and What I Lived For”, Thoreau states that “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” (972).
Why I Went to the Woods by Henry David Thoreau is a piece of literature taken from the book Walden that discusses Thoreau’s desire to experience life and it's meaning by living by the most simple terms possible. Thoreau lived off the land, built his own home, hunted and fished his own food. Through these things, Thoreau experienced how life is lived without luxury and only with the raw basics. Although his passion for the natural world shows through his writing his goal is not to persuade others to follow in his footsteps by going out and living in nature. Thoreau wanted others to follow him by living their best life which would be achieved by following their passions and the things they enjoy.
In the tenth chapter, "Baker Farm," of his memoir Walden, Thoreau regards the Fields, the family whose home in which he sought refuge from a rainstorm, in a rather negative manner. The reason why this is believed to be so is because he concludes they are poor not because they do not know how to overcome their poverty, but because they are of Irish descent. Thoreau feels since the Field family has “inherited Irish poverty,” they will forever remain living the way they live, and therefore, will never be capable of becoming as independent as he considers himself to be which indicates he believes one's ethnic background determines how much wealth one possesses (Thoreau 170). Such views are more than unexpected coming from Thoreau considering he
