Preview

Pros And Cons Of Henry David Thoreau

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
169 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Pros And Cons Of Henry David Thoreau
The World Book Encyclopedia covers the basics of Henry David Thoreau's life and his works. The author spends a brief two paragraphs on Thoreau's life before branching into his works, including connections throughout his works to his philosophy of Civil Disobedience and Transcendentalism. He also mentions Thoreau’s friendship with another famous transcendentalist author, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who owned the land on which Walden Pond is located. The author of the segment provides very little opinion, choosing to showcase facts about Thoreau's life instead. Due to the source being an encyclopedia and the author’s straightforwardness about the subject, it is clearly reliable and unbiased. The portion also provides a brief summary of the Romantic
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    Comparing Walden 'And Into The Wild' By Henry David Thoreau
    • 1643 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Comparing Walden 'And Into The Wild' By Henry David Thoreau

    Henry David Thoreau was able to see the corruption of society and its extreme hunger for money and material goods. Thoreau sought to live a life away from a materialistic world, leading him to escape to the woods around Walden pond. Thoreau believed that society contorted one’s…

    • 1643 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    How Did Henry David Thoreau Spent At Walden
    • 690 Words
    • 3 Pages

    How Did Henry David Thoreau Spent At Walden

    Thoreau starts off by explaining his two-year project at Walden Pond, near Concord, Massachusetts. He says he lived there for two years and two months, and then moved back to “civilized society” but only as an experiment in living. He believed that everyone should be able to live on their own, in nature, surviving off of only what they absolutely needed to survive. However, he also thinks that this shouldn’t be permanent, and this makes me think he did crave the human element of the society that he had so many ill feelings toward.…

    • 690 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Walden And Civil Disobedience Rhetorical Analysis
    • 841 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Walden And Civil Disobedience Rhetorical Analysis

    Thoreau is a really intelligent and philosophical man, that was the first thing I observed about him due to his constant references…

    • 841 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Comparing Hitler And Henry David Thoreau
    • 2625 Words
    • 11 Pages

    Comparing Hitler And Henry David Thoreau

    Henry David Thoreau is by far one of the most influential writers of the 17th century. He grew up in Concord Massachusetts and had a brother he could always count on. He later grew up to attend the famous college Harvard, but his family was financially unstable. By the time he was to graduate, the Great Depression fell upon them and he had to make ends meet. Thoreau learned right then and there that nothing was given to him; he had to work for what he wanted, or make what he had work. At this time it is imaginable that no one could just up and get a job because of the depression, So Thoreau knew he had to find a way to live with more grace, with more simplistic views. Early on as a child, his family suffered, until Thoreau took his brother and they both came up with an idea to help people versus try to take advantage of them and hurt them. They started a school right in their home town, just to help people who could not help themselves. Early on the ideas to help people and to live with more simple views shaped his transcedalism thought into what people know it as today ("Henry David…

    • 2625 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Comparing Thoreau And Martin Luther King Jr.
    • 260 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Comparing Thoreau And Martin Luther King Jr.

    Throughout history there have been many influential people who advocate for peace. such as thoreau an American writer in early American history. There was Martin luther king jr. a man who doesn’t need an introduction. Same as the second man Gandhi doesn’t need an introduction. Each of these men change a way a nation thinks. Thoreau came first leading the way for Gandhi and King.…

    • 260 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Henry David Thoreau's Beliefs
    • 73 Words
    • 1 Page

    Henry David Thoreau's Beliefs

    Henry David Thoreau was a environmental scientist, American philosopher, and a poet. Henry David Thoreau’s work has been seen having foreshadowed central insights of later philosophical movements like pragmatism and existentialism. He was a leading figure in the Transcendentalist movement. Thoreau is on of the most Transcendentalists today because of his ecological consciousness, independence, commitment to abolitionism, his thought of peaceful resistance. His poem style and habit of close observation are still…

    • 73 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Henry David Thoreau And Ali Comparison Essay
    • 937 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Henry David Thoreau And Ali Comparison Essay

    Thoreau seemed to be a man who cared only for himself and did whatever he wanted whenever and wherever. This was obvious in his strong “individualism” shown though how little he cared for meeting “external expectations” (Wilson 151). Thoreau’s good friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson, once said that he thinks “the severity of his ideal interfered to deprive him of healthy sufficiency of human society” (qtd. in Wilson 152). This showed how Thoreau cared more for his own beliefs and values than anything else. He also showed how little he cared what society thought when he moved into a small cabin for two years, two months, and two…

    • 937 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Comparing Henry David Thoreau And Frederick Douglass
    • 1150 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Comparing Henry David Thoreau And Frederick Douglass

    Henry David Thoreau and Frederick Douglass had two very different ideas of protest. Thoreau’s idea was passive and done individually. Douglass’s idea was active and also done individually. Frederick Douglass was trying to expose the horrible aspects of slavery and Henry David Thoreau was protesting slavery and against the government. However, Frederick Douglass’s idea of protest was better and more effective.…

    • 1150 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Henry David Thoreau: Conforming To Society's Norm
    • 323 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Henry David Thoreau: Conforming To Society's Norm

    "He keeps casting conformity behind him". Henry David Thoreau was never one to conform to society's norms. It is very apparent that this entire play's main idea is nonconformity. That is the way Thoreau lived his life. Many transcendentalists speak of what they wish to live their life as, however, it was Thoreau who went further than just discussing Transcendentalism; he put it into practice when he refused to pay the poll tax that supported the war efforts. He lived in the way he viewed as correct, rather than the way society told him to live. For example, when he completely leaves society behind and goes into the woods to thrive on his own and when he went against the teaching methods of the time period and of religious views. He never wanted to be like anybody else, and this play reflects both his personality and beliefs. If he was told to do something that he seemed unfit or contradicting everything he believed in, then he just wouldn't do it.…

    • 323 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Civil Disobedience Rhetorical Analysis
    • 2778 Words
    • 12 Pages

    Civil Disobedience Rhetorical Analysis

    Henry David Thoreau was little known outside his hometown of Concord, Massachusetts, where he was much admired for his passionate stance on social issues, his deep knowledge of natural history, and the originality of his lectures, essays, and books. He was also maligned as a crank and malingerer who never held a steady job and whose philosophy was but a pale imitation of Ralph Waldo Emerson 's. Thoreau was a man of ideas who struggled all his life to create a path that would refuse compromise. “All his activities--teaching, pencil-making, surveying, and, above all, writing--were grounded in his faith in a higher moral law that could be discovered and practiced through the unremitting discipline…

    • 2778 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Analysis Of Henry David Thoreau's Civil Disobedience
    • 770 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Analysis Of Henry David Thoreau's Civil Disobedience

    Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” inspired a revolution of men to do what is right. His term: civil disobedience, refers to people protesting unjust laws by refusing to comply with them. This process is not just for any laws and practices but ones that cannot be resolved by the Democratic process. In his time, Thoreau referred to slavery and the Mexican-American War. Thoreau found both of these pieces of history to be hypocritical of the United States moral values. The United States stands for the home of the free when, in fact, they enslaved people. He refused to be a part of the government and He showed his civil disobedience by not paying taxes. He was put in jail for this, saying: “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly,…

    • 770 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Thoreau's Civil Disobedience
    • 167 Words
    • 1 Page

    Thoreau's Civil Disobedience

    Thoreau uses tone and imagery to make his theme stronger in Civil Disobedience. He uses the rhetorical devices in a convincing matter.…

    • 167 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Thoreau's Accomplishments
    • 129 Words
    • 1 Page

    Thoreau's Accomplishments

    Failures should be sought after and not be concealed by our own ego; in fact, Thoreau, upon reflecting his future death, realized how he did not wish to be confined. In my own experience, I have also discovered this idea and the knowledge dawns on me whenever I reflect upon myself, while underneath the celestial night sky. The discovery was early on in my life, around 15, that I learnt to search for my own failures and not ignore them, but encourage them. Nevertheless, this may seem like an exhausting way of life, granted it has worn itself on me a few times, however it eventually grows to be looked at as an embarrassing starting point of an ability or perspective, which later can grow to a substantive experience.…

    • 129 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Thoreau's Theory Of Civil Disobedience
    • 485 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Thoreau's Theory Of Civil Disobedience

    In 1968, close to 50 years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed by an assassin's bullet. He had given us a decade of nonviolent protest and civil disobedience during the civil rights movement of the 1950’s. While the idea of nonviolent protest was still relatively new, MLK hadn’t invented it; he had been one of a few who pioneered the idea and made it popular. The theory of civil disobedience can be traced back to an essay by Henry David Thoreau by the same name. This theory was adopted and popularized by Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, and eventually, Martin Luther King, Jr.. In “Civil Disobedience,” Thoreau said that if a law “requires you to be the agent of injustice to another,” you should break that law, rather than be unjust to another person.…

    • 485 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Thoreau's Idea Of Civil Disobedience
    • 1067 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Thoreau's Idea Of Civil Disobedience

    Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience had the original idea of and was put affect. He was revolutionary as he endorsed a form of protest that did not need violence or fear. Thoreau’s initial actions involving the protest governmental issues like slavery. It then landed him in jail as he refused to pay taxes. More than one hundred years later, the same issue of equal rights was dividing the U. S. apart. African Americans, like Martin Luther King Jr., followed in Thoreau’s footsteps by partaking in acts of civil disobedience. Peaceful rallies drew attention to the issue while keeping it from turning into a violent problem. Thoreau’s ideas were becoming prevalent because the ideas were used in cases as Brown v. Board of Education. The main…

    • 1067 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More

Related Topics