Saturday, February 1, 2020

Does Thoreau's Civil Disobedience suggest that he is a strong Annotated Bibliography

Does Thoreau's Civil Disobedience suggest that he is a strong anarchist - Annotated Bibliography Example Thoreau wrote on this doctrine in response and opposition to the Mexican-American War that occurred between 1846 and1848, and the slavery that was prevalent in the American society then. This work was later to have an overwhelming motivation to future political protests, particularly by Martin Luther King Jr. as well as Mahatma Gandhi who vehemently opposed political actions and regimes of their times. Whereas on the face of it Thoreau would be seen as advocating for anarchy and violence (Petrulionis Para 6 ) Thoreau’s radical concept is merely a strong condemnation of political injustices and abuse of political rights. Background to Henry David Thoreau   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Henry David Thoreau  had many talents and he worked tirelessly to develop them. Henry was born in 1817 and grew up close to John, his elder brother who worked as a teacher in order to raise money for settling the tuition fee for Henry at Harvard (Hoeltje 359). One of Henry’s childhood memories w as that he could sometimes stay awake at night just to look at the stars to find out if he could be able to spot God behind those stars. A look at his entire life may lead on to conclude that he never seized to look into the nature to find the ultimate truth. Henry also served as a teacher with his brother John till 1842 when John cut himself in the process of shaving and lost his life to lockjaw right in Henry’s hands. By then Henry was 25 and he was highly traumatized by the experience. He served as a surveyor and helped his father in making pencils for sometimes. When Henry was 28, that is in the year 1845, he decided to go to Walden Pond where he built himself a cabin an land belonging to Emerson. He went there with the aim of whiting his first book.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Thoreau did a lot of reading and writing at Walden besides spending a lot of time touring nature. He was at one point briefly imprisoned for failing to pay the poll tax. He went back to Concord after t wo years and two moths where he took to surveying and making pencils having realized that only a few people were interested in buying his books. For nine years, he did these activities as part time jobs but concentrated more on writing and rewriting his book, the Walden. In fact, he made seven full drafts of the text before finally trying to have it published. He did the surveying and made a few lectures mostly on the experiences he had at Walden pond to raise money for his support.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Thoreau was strongly against the idea of the government waging the war in Mexico as evidenced in the text Resistance to Civil Government. He also held an abolitionist lecture against slavery basing his arguments on the brief experiences he had in jail, as recorded in Slavery in Massachusetts. After meeting him in Concord, Thoreau also became a strong supporter of the efforts of John Brown to bring slavery to an end, as recorded in A  Plea for Captain John Brown.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  In 1862, when Thoreau was 44 years of age, he passed on as a result of tuberculosis. Thoreau left behind a lot of written work under his name including two books, several essays and a huge Journal which was later published in 20 volumes. One common feature in Thoreau’s works is the complex contradictions in them that stimulate the readers to creatively rethink their own lives as he did. About Thoreau’

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