thoreau and cicero

2. AGENDA
Essays 3 and 4
Discussion: Cicero and
Thoreau
Rhetorical Strategies
 Questions for Critical Reading

3. Essay #3: Reminder
Essay #3 will be combined with the topics
for #4.
It will be an in-class essay that will be given
in week 10, class 19.
You will have the questions before the test.
The total points for the class will change
from 1000 to 900.

4. on Thoreau
Please get out paper and pencil for a

5. Get into your groups
 Spend 10 minutes
preparing for our
discussion on Thoreau
and Cicero

7.  Thoreau uses balanced
sentence structure to
emphasize the ways that a
supposedly democratic and
representative government can
be corrupted through the
influence of powerful persons:
 “[Government] has not the
vitality and force of a single
living man; for a single man
can bend it to his will.”
 Thoreau uses a metaphor to
suggest that democratic
government, as it exists in his
day, is actually a sham:
 “It is a sort of wooden gun to
the people themselves.”
 In other words, Thoreau
suggests that government gives
people the mere illusion of power
while actually leaving them
powerless.
The rhetorical question, "Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or
shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or
shall we transgress them at once? ..... Why is it not more apt to anticipate and
provide for reform? Why does it not cherish its wise minority? Why does it cry and
resist before it is hurt?

8. First-person narration allows
Thoreau to frame a complex and
abstract political issue in a voice that
personally bears witness to the
human effects and consequences of
government oppression. While
confident in his conviction that
slavery is morally wrong, Thoreau
generally avoids dogmatic,
authoritative statements in favor of a
more tentative, moderate first-person
voice. He prefers cautious
formulations such as "This, then, is
my position at present" over more
militant, definitive ones that might
alienate or put his reader on the
defensive.
Thoreau personifies the State "as
a lone woman with her silver
spoons." He casts government not
as a mechanical agent of injustice
but as a feminized object of pity.
During his stay in prison, Thoreau
comes to the realization that, far
from being a formidable brute force,
government is in fact weak and
morally pathetic. That he should
choose the figure of a woman to
make this point reveals an
interestingly gendered conception of
civil disobedience, given the
constant emphasis on the virtues of
men in relation to the State, here
personified as a woman.

9. Chiasmus “Under a government which imprisons any
unjustly, the true place for a just man is in prison”
 Allusion
 "But almost all say that such
is not the case now. But such
was the case, they think, in
the Revolution of '75. If one
were to tell me that this was
a bad government because it
taxed certain foreign
commodities brought to its
ports, it is most probable that
I should not make an ado
about it, for I can do without
them."
 He utilizes techniques such
as repetition to emphasize
certain points (Anaphora).
 "It does not keep the
country free. It does not
settle the West. It does not
educate”
 Analogy
 "If I have unjustly wrested
a plank from a drowning
man, I must restore it to
him though I drown
myself.”

10. Rhetorical Strategies
 Paradox
 “It is truly enough said, that a
corporation has no
conscience; but a
corporation of conscientious
men is a corporation with a
conscience.”
• Aphorism:
• “the progress from an
absolute to a limited
monarchy, from a limited
monarchy to a democracy, is
a progress toward a true
respect for the individual”
• “If a plant cannot live
according to its nature it dies
and so a man.”

11. Questions for Critical
Reading

12. How would you
characterize the tone of
Thoreau’s address?
Is he chastising his audience? Is he praising it? What opinion
do you think he has of his audience?

13. Explain what Thoreau means when
he says, “But a government in which
the majority rule in all
cases cannot be based on justice,
even as far as men understand it.”

14. How is injustice “part of the
necessary friction of the
machine of government?”

15. Why does Thoreau provide us with
“the whole history of ‘My Prisons’”?
Describe what being in jail taught
Thoreau. Why do you think Thoreau
reacted so strongly to being in a
local jail for a single day?

16. How might Thoreau view the
responsibility of the majority to
a minority within the sphere of
government?

17. Responsibility
 “It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to
devote himself to the eradication of any, even the
most enormous, wrong; he may still properly have
other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at
least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no
thought longer, not to give it practically his support.”

18.  Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we
endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have
succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men, generally,
under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait
until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think
that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the
evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is
worse than the evil. It makes it worse. Why is it not more apt to
anticipate and provide for reform? Why does it not cherish its
wise minority? Why does it cry and resist before it is hurt? Why
does it not encourage its citizens to put out its faults, and do
better than it would have them? Why does it always crucify Christ
and excommunicate Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce
Washington and Franklin rebels?
 Under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for
a just man is also a prison.

19. How clear are Thoreau’s
concepts of justice? On
what are they based?

21.  Argument Dialogue
 (Between Philus and Laelius)
 Definition/interpretation
 (What is Justice?)
 Offers Alternatives
 (perform injustice/not suffer it; perform
and suffer; neither perform or suffer it)
 Evaluation
 (perform injustice and not suffer it)
Compares
 (Justice to policies of
Rome)
Contrasts
 (Wisdom with Justice)
Analogy
 (virtuous man vs. ruffian)
Counterargument
 (by Laelius at the end to
make his point)
Rhetorical Strategies

22. Questions for
Critical Reading

23. Why does Laelius choose Philus to
argue against justice?

24. Does Arguing against a positive value
help our understanding of that value’s
importance?

25. What is Philus’s Reputation and how does it
affect his argument?

26. How do ideas
of justice differ
in the different
lands Philus
Mentions?

27. To What Extent is Philus
a Feminist?

28. Which of Laelius’s statements in the final paragraphs of the selection seem weakest to
you? What are the Strengths?

29. HOMEWORK
Post #27 PASS
Post #28 QHQ: How can we apply the
philosophy of Cicero and/or Thoreau to A
Game of Thrones? Make sure to include
textual support in your post.