The Ship Wreck Rhetorical Analysis

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Thoreau's "The Shipwreck": Changing Perspectives Henry David Thoreau acknowledged the undeniable and vital link between the human and the natural based on his life in Concord, but as he traveled out into the world and was met with a more hostile version of nature's power, his thoughts and reflections on this link changed considerably. In Concord, Henry David Thoreau fell in love with the peaceful accord of the natural world. Thoreau found Concord's nature to be inspirational, soothing, refreshing, and mesmerizing. His perspective caused him to seek out a connection between himself and the natural world. It is a viewpoint that created within Thoreau a blissful oneness with nature. "I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, …show more content…

John shipwreck, Thoreau's interpretation of this connection between the natural and the human was radically altered. Thoreau's shocking observation of the aftermath of the shipwreck introduced him to the tragic, often wrathful, and unmerciful side of nature. He reported witnessing a woman who had looked upon the dead body of her child "in her sister's arms ... and within three days after, the mother died from the effect of that sight" (Thoreau, "The Shipwreck" 7). He recounted this scene with a sense of abject horror and none of the reverence for the gentle nature he was so accustomed to. The tranquil, tender nature of Walden Pond had allowed for communion, but this "new" nature was an exceedingly vicious power that was set on murderous destruction. With the departure of the gentle nature of Walden Pond, Thoreau's beautiful reflections on nature took on a darker and somewhat macabre tone: Close at hand they were simply some bones with a little flesh adhering to them ... But as I stood there they grew more and more imposing. They were alone with the beach and the sea, whose hollow roar seemed addressed to them, and I was impressed as if there was an understanding between them and the ocean which necessarily left me out, with my sniveling sympathies. That dead body had taken possession of the shore, and reigned over it as no living one could, in the name of a certain majesty which belonged to it. (Thoreau, "The Shipwreck"

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