Henry David Thoreau's Life And Accomplishments

Thoreau refused to pay the poll ax because the money was being used to finance a war he was against. This war was over Texas, which was to enter the Union as a slave state. He wrote Civil Disobedience while in the Walden jail. Thoreau wrote how disappointed he was with the government by forcing him to pay a poll tax that supported a war and slavery. King would later go to jail acting on his beliefs. Martin Luther King and Henry David Thoreau used civil disobedience to change people’s ideas and beliefs to stop the injustice brought against them and their nation.

Henry David Thoreau was an individualist and believed in individual self-reliance. To test this out, he spent three years in isolation living in a cabin at Walden Pond, Concord. During this time, he wrote a book called Walden, which is about his time spent in isolation. After his isolation, he spoke to others about what freedom really is. To him freedom was “absolute freedom which is found by rejecting market society and retreating into the wilderness”. Doing this, he said, “…is the only way to preserve both individual independence and the natural environment”, as stated in Liberty of Freedom. Later on in his life, he was incarcerated in 1846 for refusing to pay taxes. After he was released from prison, he said, “…under a government that imprisons unjustly, the true place of a just man is also prison.” Thoreau even made a speech called “Resistance to Civil Government”. He truly believed that the government was the one making freedom and liberty hard to reach.

In Walden Henry David Thoreau went to the woods as an experiment to test himself and how he could live without modern technology, while Chris McCandless went for more complicated reasons. Thoreau believed that in order for him to fulfill and bring purpose to his life that he needed to go and live in the woods. He wanted to live a life that was simple and not “frittered away by details” (Thoreau 59) One of Thoreau’s main reasons for going to the woods to be able to think, not to get away from people. He would still allow people to engage in conversation with him but would spend most of his time alone. While in the woods Thoreau would sit for hours and just think. His goal was to learn not only more about himself but about the world around him. Thoreau sometimes sat in his doorway from sunrise till noon some summer mornings just thinking, listening and observing. Thoreau also went to the woods to live deliberately. He wished to only face the most essential facts of life and live simply. He believed that people should live simply

Thoreau had many valid points, but living life doing what you feel is right "at any time" is risky. Although some laws may be unjust, others were put into place to keep us safe. If everyone did what they felt to be right, the world would be into shambles. In Thoreau 's case he prefered laissez-faire government “…I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government” (Thoreau). He believed that a man can change an unjust system by refusing to be unjust, and by being entirely willing to make a sacrifice. Thoreau sacrifice was a night in jail, after he refused to pay what he believed "unfair tax". Him doing what he felt to be right, cost him his freedom.

In the end, much of Henry David Thoreau’s motivation for coming to Walden Pond was for the betterment of the self. Indeed, this desire for personal betterment could be boiled down to what I’ve surmised to be the three things Thoreau valued more than anything else. Of course, these three values, self-discipline, self-reliance, and self-reflection are themselves a part of the man’s own view that everyone should try their hardest to live deliberately. Though his value system seems constrained and stiff, Thoreau spends almost the entirety of the book living out these values, and finding purpose and fulfillment in doing so.

Meanwhile, the country was at war with Mexico over the rights to Texas. One night in July1846 Thoreau spent a night in the Concord jail for refusing to pay the poll tax, which helped to finance the war with Mexico. It's safe to say that Henry did a great deal of thinking that night. In the future this night would be celebrated as the most important night of his entire life. Thoreau's beliefs as a transcendentalist are well known; a striving to attain spiritual connections between God, Nature and the human Mind, but it is his personal philosophy of "an interconnectedness" of all things in nature including human beings that awakens him to the idea of independence. In Walking he describes how "in wildness is the preservation of the world…the most alive is the wildest." Meaning that humans all have a "wild savage in us" that pulls us

In the 19th century, Henry David Thoreau expressed his experiences as a societal reject in his self-proclaimed book called Walden. Its contents portray how he purposefully removed himself from society and placed his own being in a heavily wooded area for an extended period of time. For over 2 years, he thrived in a secluded, yet approachable cabin where he would often receive visitors due to his scenic location and inspirational outlook on life.

Henry David Thoreau represents a new attempt at fulfilling the American dream. He follows in the footsteps of Ralph Waldo Emerson, embracing transcendentalism and even staying at Emerson’s house to write. Thoreau calls for personal liberation and to embrace a connection with nature. In Baym’s introduction to Thoreau, before including Walden, she writes about the purpose of his essay:

Henry David Thoreau is a good writer who has done many good things in his correr. He is an important contributor to the american literature and philosophical movement. The american literature and philosophical movement is seen throughout his writings. His last few writings he really showed the importance of the american literature and philosophical movement. Henry David Thoreau has shown really good writings throughout his career.

In Walden, Henry David Thoreau remarks, “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” (61). Thoreau is a man who is known to simply live by restraining his necessities; in order to thrive on and live life to it’s utmost potential. Unsatisfied with his life, he comprehends that there is an extraordinary purpose to live on Earth. Merely abstracting himself from a urban society to seek out principles in which to live a refined life, he proceeds an odyssey inside of nature, in which he self-built and lived in a log cabin. In all respects, his two years of living nearby Walden Pond,

The summer of 1845 found Henry David Thoreau living in a rude shack on the banks of Walden Pond. The actual property was owned by Ralph Waldo Emerson, the great American philosopher. Emerson had earlier published the treatise entitled "Nature," and the young Thoreau was profoundly affected by its call for individuality and self-reliance. Thoreau planted a small garden, took pen and paper, and began to record the of life at Walden.

Much of Henry David Thoreau’s work was affected by his early life and education. Henry David Thoreau was born into a normal middle class family in Concord Massachusetts on July 12, 1817. Thoreau’s family were

Henry David Thoreau was a major figure in the transcendentalist movement. He was born in Concord, Massachusetts on July 12, 1817 (“Henry David Thoreau” biography.co). Richard J. Schneider’s article, “Thoreau's Life” reveals that he went to public school in Concord, then attended Concord Academy. Thoreau was somewhat different than other children in Concord. “As a child he rarely followed the rules and was independent and strong-willed” (Brozo, et al. 377). Being independent as a child shows up very clearly in Thoreau’s adult life. Later Schneider states that Thoreau went to Harvard College and graduated in the top of his class. However, he had to graduate early because he was very ill and not financially able to continue. Thoreau worked at many places throughout the years. He taught at a school, worked at his family’s pencil factory, and opened a school with his brother (Schneider). He even worked as a land surveyor (Witherell and Dubrulle). Thoreau was friends with a great transcendentalist writer, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Thoreau spent two years living at a place called Walden Pond, which was property of Emerson (“Henry David Thoreau” biography.com). As stated in the biography, “Henry David Thoreau,” “He experimented with working as little as possible rather than engage in the pattern of six days on with one day off.” This may seem like a lazy way of living, but to Thoreau it was something more. “He felt that this new approach helped him avoid the misery he saw around him” (“Henry David”). The hardship that Thoreau was feeling from the world was the public. The public admired technology and did not appreciate nature like he did. Henry

But America starved its poets as a rule, and Thoreau spent much of his life attempting to do just what he wanted and at the same time to survive. For he wanted to live as a poet as well as to write poetry. He loved nature and could stay indoors only with effort. The beautiful woods, meadows, and waters of the Concord neighborhood attracted him like a drug. He wandered among them by day and by night, observing the world of nature closely and sympathetically. He named himself, half humorously, "inspector of snow-storms and rainstorm

Thoreau loved the outdoors and would rather live of the land than any other way. He enjoyed waling in the outdoors so much he had said while hunting never did he find his rifle to be too heavy. He held many odd jobs to support himself while traveling and writing but he was very well known in his father’s later business of pencil making. Biographer Robert Sullivan writes that while in the employ of the pencil company “Thoreau studied various graphite hardnesses [sic] and invented a machine that manufactured a finer