A Deeper Side of Thoreau
“Resistance to Civil Disobedience” is one of Henry David Thoreau’s most famous essays. One of the major problems most critics see with this essay deals with Thoreau’s seemingly contradictory statements about society from the beginning to the end. Barry Wood, a well-known critical writer, attributes this change in beliefs to the enlightenment of Thoreau in jail. While I agree with Wood that Thoreau does achieve a form of enlightenment, I will show that Thoreau’s views regarding the society he lived in never actually changed throughout the essay: the only aspect of the essay that changed was Thoreau’s means of attacking his society. Thoreau uses his enlightened state to shift from an overt, blatant form of attack to a more subtle, psychological one.
There are many issues in this essay that Thoreau expresses conflicting views on, such as the government’s role in society, but his main focus lays in the members of the society themselves and how they......
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Approximate Word Count: 1364
Approximate Pages: 6 (260 words per double-spaced page) |