Walden And Civil Disobedience Rhetorical Analysis

Sharon Ahmed
Walden and Civil Disobedience Henry David Thoreau is one of the most interesting men I have ever encountered in my readings. Thoreau decided to isolate himself from all of civilization, far away from any neighborhood, town, business or governing body. In doing so he wished to discover what mankind could not teach him. In Walden and Civil Disobedience, he recorded his findings. Throughout most of this book i was confused...and then I was overwhelmed, but at the end of the day I've reached a point of realization I otherwise wouldn't have. I was blind but now I see. That was corny but true. Thoreau is a really intelligent and philosophical man, that was the first thing I observed about him due to his constant references
to Shakespeare, Confucius, and people of ancient periods of time. His main concern was on the control of society by more "superior" people or in other words our government system. He also evaluated the term "alone" almost deterring an overall etymology of the word. Thoreau also tries to make it a point for whom he is directing the book toward. He said its for those who read it in an open mind this book will be beneficial. I felt as if almost every line written in this book is worthy of writing down as a quote. No individual sentence in this book was of redundant use. Each and every line has its own significant meaning, one of deep understanding.

Something Thoreau said which appealed to me was "It's a fool's life, as they will find when they get to the end of it if not before." It basically insists upon the fact that no matter what human beings are creations meant to fail, we will never win in this life.
It's a fools life because us average people are programmed to believe in superficial ways of life. If you ask anybody what they wish to do with their lives, they wish to be successful, become famous, become rich. Funny thing is I was watching this motivational video called "Listen..This Will Change Your Life," and in it a man proposed that if we take a hundred men at the age of twenty five who start even, do you have any idea what will happen to those men by the time they are sixty five? These one hundred men at the age of twenty five believe they will be successful. You would notice that they were eager to be successful as well but by the time they are sixty five, one will be rich, four will be financially independent, five will still be working, fifty four will be broke. He was discussing how men need to think of a pre-determined goal and do whatever it takes to reach that goal and that is how man can be successful. This man continues to describe what success is and how man can achieve it, but Thoreau has a completely different take on the aspect of success than most men
do. Thoreau goes to say that men don't need to be employed, men don't need money, men don't need any of those things. When living in the wild secluded from all of humanity you discover all that are the necessities in life are right in front of you. You just need to take advantage of it. People tend to have this pre-conceived idea that in order to be successful you need to have a mansion, cars, money but those are all materialistic possessions we won't be able

to take to the grave. Indirectly Thoreau posed the question, is it important to live simply and focus on necessities or do we as human beings feel it is more important to feed into our instincts and feed our desires instead? Interesting question... Another topic Thoreau thoroughly discussed was lonesomeness. He had never quite felt lonely until he was near that pond all alone. But then I feel he forced himself to believe he wasn't completely alone. By saying things like "This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space. How far apart, think you, dwell the two most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breath of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments? Why should I feel lonely? Is not our planet in the Milky Way? This which you put seems to me not to be the most important question. What sort is that space which separates a man from his fellows and makes him solitary?" He seems to be declaring that one is never truly alone. But I tend to disagree with Thoreau's statement. Even if you are surrounded by people and living things does not mean you are not alone. Someone wise once told me that, "We are born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create n illusion for the moment that we are not alone."
Maybe I had trouble comprehending with what Thoreau had to say but after all, his suggestions were but mere observations.