Civil Disobedience Rhetorical Analysis

Henry David Thoreau’s words that “disobedience is the true foundation of liberty” and that “the obedient must be slaves” is a political statement that never lost its topicality during the Romantic era. Thoreau served as an important contributor to the philosophical and American literary movement known as New England Transcendentalism. Nature and the conduct of life are two central themes that are often weaved together in his essays and books that were published in the Romantic era of literature. Thoreau brought these two themes together to write on how people ought to live a simplistic life through embracing nature. His naturalistic writing intertwined cataloging and observation with Transcendentalist views of nature. Through his life and

From the start of man fighting for freedom or his beliefs, the question has consistently been whether a person can wage a battle using words rather than actions. The notion of civil disobedience would seem to be an inept weapon against political inequity; history, however, has persistently proven it to be the most dynamic weapon of the individual. By refusing to pay his taxes and subsequently being imprisoned, Henry David Thoreau demonstrated this very defiance. Thoreau’s Resistance to Civil Government conveys the effectiveness of the individual conscience, renounces hypocrisy, and cultivates a sense of urgency where inaction creates a moral conflict. This path of responsibility paved by Thoreau gave our leaders of today the means they

In “Civil Disobedience”, Thoreau begins the essay using logos and ends the essay using pathos by giving personal examples of why men should follow their consciences rather than laws that do not support their moral beliefs. In the second part of this essay, Thoreau states “I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this account”(Thoreau). After establishing with reason and logic that government should support citizens, rather than citizens supporting the government, Thoreau gives an example of how he refused to pay taxes to a government that allowed slavery. By showing that he was willing to go to jail, Thoreau builds his credibility because he takes action in accordance with his beliefs instead of just writing them.

Thoreau believed that individual integrity had the ability to triumph the government. Thoreau went to jail because he refused to pay his poll taxes for the past six years. Also, he protested against the Mexican war, and slavery, which also contributed to him going to jail and his views on the government. During his short period in jail he clarified that he did not dread it, and portrayed it as “Traveling into a far country” (964).

The night in prison, he recounts, was "novel and interesting enough." His roommate had been accused of burning down a barn, though Thoreau speculated that the man had fallen asleep drunk in the barn while smoking a pipe. Thoreau was let in on the gossip and history of the jail and was shown several verses that were composed in the jail. The workings of the jail fascinated him, and staying in jail that night was like traveling in another country. He felt as if he was seeing his town through the light of the middle ages--as if he had never heard the sounds of his town before.

Brown was sentenced to death and called ridiculous for his actions by the community; Thoreau took the opportunity to deliver a speech address to Brown called A Plea for Captain John Brown. He praised Brown’s decision to take action and drew a representation of a fearless man willing to take a stand for others “A man of rare common-sense and directness of speech, as of action; a transcendentalist above all, a man of ideas and principles, --that was what distinguished him. Not yielding to a whim or transient impulse, but carrying out the purpose of a life…I do not believe in erecting statues to those who still live in our hearts, whose bones have not yet crumbled in the earth around us, but I would rather see the statue of Captain Brown in the Massachusetts State-House yard, than that of any other man whom I know. I rejoice that I live in this age, that I am his contemporary.” (“Avalon Project- A Plea For Captain John Brown By Henry David Thoreau; October 30,1959”). This is the example of the moral system Thoreau wanted others to adopt; here, one man’s decision to take a step and make a change for those who couldn’t do it for themselves, would make a difference in the current society.

In the play, The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail by authors Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, we see Henry David Thoreau locked in jail because of his unyielding will to not conform to the government or society's expectations, when their expectations are unwholesome. During his time spent in jail we see the idea of transcendentalism develop through Henry’s belief that even though he’s is locked up he is more free than any freeman could ever hope to be. Just as it was relevant in Thoreau's lifetime, freeing yourself from society’s norms /freedom from the government, transcending yourself, and being individualistic are all still important now.

Thoreau wrote that people must be willing to go to jail if they want to change a law by disobeying the law. Thoreau went to jail instead of paying for his taxes because he believed the government used the money for unjust things. This is how Henry Thoreau thinks people can change unjust laws. He thought that if people willingly would to go to jail and quit their jobs, then the revolution will take a place and reform will come. Thoreau was willing to go to jail to change unjust laws because of his conscience.

At the time, slavery was still an issue and this may have caused Thoreau to further criticize the government as it was oppressing people and no one was doing anything to restrain it from occurring. Within his chapter he mentions that there is a need of someone to “revolutionize” (303) and take a stand against the government to free the oppressed and get rid of any measures taken by the government to “force [him] to become like [them].” Due to this Thoreau was a radical because he wanted change to come about instead of simply going back to a previous political system. He mainly wanted to get rid of any form of government and would rather live based on his own ideas instead of having the government impose ideas upon its people.

One example of the government’s injustice that Thoreau depicts is the way that the government manipulates the members of the standing army. Thoreau claims that, soldiers are prompted by an undue respect for the law and will blindly follow orders from a higher-ranking individual, even at the expense of their conscience and their own common sense. In Thoreau’s opinion, the government has taken away all moral judgment and awareness of the men who are in the military. By using these men to fight in a supposed unjust war, the government has taken away all semblance of intelligent thought and has reduced the members of its army to men created out of clay or wood. In turn, these men become merely a vessel through which the government is able to accomplish its own purpose. Instead of individuals working in harmony to accomplish a greater goal, Thoreau eludes to the idea that the army has as much worth as a herd of horses or a group of dogs; something that is used simply as a tool and not recognized for the individual ideas or perspectives. As a conclusion of sorts to his section about the standing army, Thoreau contemplates on the fine line between being a slave to the government, and refusing to follow government mandates and restrictions.

Thoreau pleads to his reader’s feelings by talking about what he regards as demeaning to the American people, especially the Government’s prisoners. Thoreau then talks about the men who work for the government, which he describes the men as being

Thoreau did not pay poll tax for six years. He was then thrown in jail. Yet he seemed surprised by that fact that the government would throw him in jail for not paying taxes. While lamenting the fact that he is in jail, Thoreau also offers many philosophical rumblings about the government and expects the readers of his essay to take any of what he says seriously despite the fact that he is not qualified whatsoever to reflect of the state of the country's political system.

Thoreau spent a night in jail as a consequence of his actions. More so, he “dissociated” himself from the government. Thoreau is just one man. His disobedience was inconsequential to the American government and the American people. Now, imagine if half of the country decided to not pay taxes until a certain set of laws was fixed.

Henry David Thoreau was an American writer and protester, who wrote the influential essay “Civil Disobedience”. In his essay, he advocates for citizens to protest against government actions that they deem unjust and to stand up for one’s rights, putting morals before law,

For Thoreau, the escape from society was a way to deeply learn about himself and human nature. He writes, “Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself” (Thoreau 72). This simple way of life allowed Thoreau to analyze himself and tendencies within society. He explains the effects of this solitary life on a person: “In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness” (253). Thoreau was able to discover flaws in society. He states, “... men establish and conform their daily life of routine and habit every where, which still is built on purely illusory foundations” (78). Unlike Hester and Sethe, the societal norms Thoreau experiences are not painful punishments or dehumanizing treatment. However, the “opinion, and prejudice, and tradition, and delusion, and appearance, that alluvion which covers the globe … through poetry, philosophy and religion” (80), can still have a profound and often negative effect on individuals and society as a whole. Thoreau is able to overcome these societal norms because he separates himself from them. Thoreau explains of humankind, “When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence,-that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the