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Thoreau's view on nature
Thoreau qualifying essay
Thoreau's view on nature
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Citizens have many rights in their country. They are the ones who choose their
leader. Therefore, they should have a right to choose whether they want to support a war
or not. Thoreau said,” If the law is of such a nature that it requires you to be an agent of
injustice to another, then I say, break the law." This shows Thoreau’s policy of civil
disobedience. He thought that people should live under what they believe in and not by
the government’s rules. Another influence of civil disobedience was Martin Luther King,
Jr. He and other protesters fought for what they believed in a non-violent way. He and
others deserved the right to be free and equal. They did not back down until they were
treated equal. They had a moral obligation to resist and show others how to do so.
Even though America was fighting against the Mexican threat, Williams was
fighting an internal threat. Williams was in a tug of war with slavery and freedom. He
wanted live free in the world like other people, but during that time the government
wouldn’t allow it. Williams was killed on his way to Canada, but his dream never died.
Thoreau wanted Emerson to deliver a speech and stand up for what’s right, but he failed
Thoreau.
Strong scenes show that Thoreau is against the war. He had a vision showing
Williams being fired at by soldiers and escaping. One of the strongest scenes is when both
the U.S. and Mexican armies were firing on each other. After the smoke cleared a dying
John was laying on the ground. Thoreau cradled him. That scene was good reason for
anyone not to support a war. In the scene, Emerson was president and he really didn’t
but most of all he wanted to live with freedom to think and act as he
Henry David Thoreau is historically recognized as a transcendentalist who inspired others through his essays portraying his individual and unique ways of thinking. In the play, The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, Henry’s night spent in jail is portrayed with accompanying flashbacks of his earlier life. One of these flashbacks includes the character Ellen Sewell. Henry David Thoreau and Ellen Sewell share numerous interactions but each character has their own intentions. Henry often shows that he wants to teach Ellen about his way of living and to lead her to her happiness. Ellen on the other hand shows that she wants to learn from Henry from nothing more.
The forceful subjugation of a people has been a common stain on history; Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail was written during the cusp of the civil rights movement in the US on finding a good life above oppressive racism. Birmingham “is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known,” and King’s overall goal is to find equality for all people under this brutality (King). King states “I cannot sit idly… and not be concerned about what happens,” when people object to his means to garner attention and focus on his cause; justifying his search for the good life with “a law is just on its face and unjust in its application,” (King). Through King’s peaceful protest, he works to find his definition of good life in equality, where p...
needs to fight for freedom because the southern whites look to exercise any opportunity they
Emerson created maxims, which are short statements expressing a general truth, to express his way of Transcendental conduct and what he believed applied to mankind. His Transcendental way of thought consisted of showing conviction of individual thinking and looking towards nature for organic feeling. These maxims appear throughout the play, "The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail", as the story unfolds around the life of main character Henry and his ordeals that arise resulting from following his own path. Emerson's maxim "Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind" speaks the importance of acting out as one deems fit instead of doing what others want. This comes from Emerson’s essay “Self-Reliance” in which he retells a story from
He met the government “once a year--no more--in the person of its tax-gatherer; this is the only mode in which a man situated as I am necessarily meets it. ”iii In the case of Thoreau and King, their struggle could not be resolved by simple negotiation. The third step, as King calls it, is self-purification.
This letter covers the ways in which peaceful protest and standing up against injustice can lead to positive results. Both pieces conveyed a similar message of standing up for what is right. The strongest rhetorical methods which Thoreau uses are allusions, logos, ethos and rhetorical questions. However, King’s use of Thoreau’s piece was written prior to the civil war, and was in response to the Mexican-American war and slavery in some territories. It was intended for US citizens; more specifically, those who are unhappy with the way the United States government is ran.
Throughout modern American culture certain laws passed by the majority have been considered unjust by a wise minority. However, with the logical and emotional appeal of hard fought battles, voices have been heard, and the minds of the majority can sometimes be converted to see the truth. Thoreau, after spending a night in jail and seeing the truth hidden behind the propaganda of the majority, became convinced that he could no longer accept his government’s behavior of passing laws that benefit the majority with degrading the minority. It’s quite ironic that by the government imprisoning Thoreau he became freer then ever before. He was able to see how the government turned peaceably inclined men into controllable machines. Thoreau saw how the government dealt with its citizens as only a body, while completely disregarding the sense, intellect, and moral beliefs of its people. In his essay “Civil Disobedience,” Thoreau stated that “a government ruled by majority in all cases cannot be based on justice.” He further believed that “under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also prison.” This point made by Thoreau can be seen as the truth throughout history. A just man never sits by quietly watching the majority degrade the minority to suit their own immoral purposes. Like Thoreau, another just man who stood out from the quiet minority was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. King was, as well, willing to suffer for his views to put an end to racial segregation, and was arrested on numerous occasions for holding strong in his believes and spreading his message throughout the minds of all God’s children. King often cited conscience as a guide to obeying just laws and disobeying unjust ones. In an essay written by King titled “A letter from Birmingham Jail,” King clearly defines the interpretation of the differerence between the two kinds of laws. “An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is a difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.” To further understand this King quotes from St. Augustine himself who once stated “any law that uplifts human personality is just.
Henry David Thoreau in his essay “Civil Disobedience” Thoreau asserts that men should react from their conscience. Thoreau believed it was the duty of a person to defy the law if his conscience says that the law is unjust. He believed this even if the law was made by a democratic action. Thoreau
disobedience takes place the weak stands against the strong and do not allow people of authority to force rules, or
While Emerson and Thoreau certainly have difference of opinions, they recognize the need for public discussion and discourse. Emerson declares “a foolish consistency” to be “the hobgoblin of little minds” (Emerson 367). This is shown in their essays “Self-Reliance” and “Civil Disobedience” in which they support individuality and personal expression. Despite their contrasting views of society and government, the two most prominent transcendentalists in literary history share a passionate belief in the necessity that every American must exercise their constitutional rights and make known their views even and especially if it challenges the status quo.
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was a philosopher and writer who is well known for his criticism of the American government during the time. During Thoreau’s life, there were two major issues being debated in the United States: slavery and the Mexican-American War. Both issues greatly influenced his essay, as he actually practiced civil disobedience in his own life by refusing to pay taxes in protest of the Mexican War. He states that the government should be based on conscience and that citizens should refuse to follow the law and have the duty not to participate and stay as a member of an unjust institution like the government. I argue that the notion of individualism and skepticism toward government is essential to the basis of many important reform movements in the modern society.
In his famous essay, “Letter from Birmingham Jail,’’ Martin Luther King, Jr. cites conscience as a guide to obeying just laws and defying unjust laws. In the same way, Henry David Thoreau wrote in his famous essay, “Civil Disobedience,” that people should do what their conscience tells them and not obey unjust laws. The positions of the two writers are very close; they use a common theme of conscience, and they use a similar rhetorical appeal of ethos.
When Ralph Waldo Emerson gave his famous “American Scholar” address in front of the Phi Beta Kappa Society in Cambridge, it just so happened that the young Henry-David Thoreau was sitting in the graduating class, being sprinkled with all of Emerson’s wisdom and influence. It was in this very oration that Emerson spoke about the three most important characteristics of the true American Scholar, the final of which was action. When Emerson referred to action, he spoke of it thus, “action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essential.” Although Thoreau was clearly heavily influenced by the words of Emerson, it is also apparent that Thoreau took Emerson’s words and revamped them, adding a great deal more emphasis on the action; instead of