“Where I Lived, and What I Lived For” by Henry David Thoreau
Entry V. “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For” by Henry David Thoreau. Genre: Classic Essay
1. Thoreau declares his higher purpose as going off into the woods (deliberately) in search to learn of the truth. He lived to reduce life to “its lowest terms” and to find the true and genuine meaning of the world. He wants to know it solely by getting to experience it in different terms compared to others; Thoreau just wants to live and not be caught up in a materialistic society.
2. “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. “ In his opening sentence Thoreau creates an antithesis that juxtaposes the concept of life and death to contrast his different ideas of truly living. He supports his decision of going off into the woods by stating that if he had done the opposite (stayed in society) he would have regretted it.
3. Thoreau uses the words “dear” and “mean” as contrasts of each other in paragraph 1. When he calls living “dear” it is simply an example of how he cherishes life and living. When he says if life “proved to be mean,” he means that there is a possibility life in its simplest form could have been harsh and unbearable. Either way, Thoreau wants to experience the answer first-hand.
4. In the similes in paragraph 2, Thoreau compares men to ants and pygmies. The rhetorical significance of this is the symbolism behind this comparison. Both ants and pygmies may seem strong but in the end, all of these actions are not beneficial and have no purpose to them. This parallels Thoreau’s point of a person who lives for the future and not for the present. The person is wasting a day while wishing for another. The person did not capture the pleasure of living and that is the problem Thoreau wants to exploit.
5. The extended metaphor’s effect in paragraph 2 goes on and on to explain how even though
1. Thoreau declares his higher purpose as going off into the woods (deliberately) in search to learn of the truth. He lived to reduce life to “its lowest terms” and to find the true and genuine meaning of the world. He wants to know it solely by getting to experience it in different terms compared to others; Thoreau just wants to live and not be caught up in a materialistic society.
2. “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. “ In his opening sentence Thoreau creates an antithesis that juxtaposes the concept of life and death to contrast his different ideas of truly living. He supports his decision of going off into the woods by stating that if he had done the opposite (stayed in society) he would have regretted it.
3. Thoreau uses the words “dear” and “mean” as contrasts of each other in paragraph 1. When he calls living “dear” it is simply an example of how he cherishes life and living. When he says if life “proved to be mean,” he means that there is a possibility life in its simplest form could have been harsh and unbearable. Either way, Thoreau wants to experience the answer first-hand.
4. In the similes in paragraph 2, Thoreau compares men to ants and pygmies. The rhetorical significance of this is the symbolism behind this comparison. Both ants and pygmies may seem strong but in the end, all of these actions are not beneficial and have no purpose to them. This parallels Thoreau’s point of a person who lives for the future and not for the present. The person is wasting a day while wishing for another. The person did not capture the pleasure of living and that is the problem Thoreau wants to exploit.
5. The extended metaphor’s effect in paragraph 2 goes on and on to explain how even though