![ 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?](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/ewrt2class14thoreau-171113132257/85/Ewrt-2-class-14-thoreau-11-320.jpg)
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Ewrt 2 class 14 thoreau
- 2. AGENDA Review: Thoughtson Cicero? Essay #3: Justice: Due Friday, Week 8 before noon. Discussion: Thoreau Bio Rhetorical Strategies Questions for Critical Reading QHQ Thoreau Suggestions for Writing Essay #3
- 3. Thoughts on, or Questionsabout, Cicero?
- 4. Review: Essay #3:Justice Essay #3 will be in response to either the excerpt from Cicero, Thoreau, or both. Choose your topic from "Suggestions for Writing" on pages 129-30, prompts 1-9 or on pages 157-58 prompts 1-6. The prompts are also listed on the website. It should be a least two pages long but not longer than three pages (excluding a works cited page). It should be formatted MLA style. It is due Friday, Week 8, at noon.
- 5. on Thoreau Please get outpaper and pencil for a
- 6. Biography What do you knowabout Henry David Thoreau?
- 7. Thoreau: A BriefBiography • Essayist, poet, and Transcendentalist • Born to a pencil maker in Concord, Mass. July 12, 1817 • Went to Concord Academy and then to Harvard • Loved the outdoors • Best known for his book Walden • Once went to chapel in a green coat “because the rules required black” • Refused to pay his poll tax • He died at 44 from tuberculosis
- 8. Transcendentalism isan American literary, political, and philosophical movement of the early nineteenth century, centered around Ralph Waldo Emerson. Transcendentalists were critics of their contemporary society for its unthinking conformity, and they urged that each person find, in Emerson's words, “an original relation to the universe.” Emerson and Thoreau sought this relation in solitude amidst nature and in their writing. By the 1840s, they were engaged in the social experiments of Brook Farm, Fruitlands, and Walden; and, by the 1850s in an increasingly urgent critique of American slavery.
- 9. Get into yourgroups Spend 10 minutes preparing for our discussion: rhetorical strategies and “Questions for Critical Reading”: (page 157)
- 11. Thoreau usesbalanced 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?
- 12. First-person narration allows Thoreauto 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.
- 13. Chiasmus “Under agovernment 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.”
- 14. 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.”
- 15.
- 16. How would you characterizethe tone of Thoreau’s address? Is he chastising his audience? Is he praising it? What opinion do you think he has of his audience?
- 17. Explain what Thoreaumeans 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.”
- 18. How is injustice“part of the necessary friction of the machine of government?”
- 19. Why does Thoreauprovide 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?
- 20. Choose an exampleof Thoreau’s use of irony, and comment on its effectiveness.
- 21. Thoreau found itironic to involuntarily pay money to a society which he “has not joined,” and to be threatened for resisting orders. Some years ago, the State met me in behalf of the Church, and commanded me to pay a certain sum toward the support of a clergyman whose preaching my father attended, but never I myself. "Pay," it said, "or be locked up in the jail." I declined to pay.
- 22. How might Thoreauview the responsibility of the majority to a minority within the sphere of government?
- 23. “It isnot 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.”
- 24. Unjust lawsexist: 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.
- 25. How clear areThoreau’s concepts of justice? On what are they based?
- 26. Is it possiblethat when Thoreau mentions “the Chinese philosopher" he means Lao-tzu? Would Lao- tzu agree that the individual is “the basis of the empire”?
- 27. Thoreau QHQ Discussion Why doesThoreau dislike the government?
- 28. QHQ: Is Thoreau moremotivated to do nothing against unjust laws after his experience in prison?
- 29. • In teams,discuss the essay questions from "Suggestions for Writing" pages 129-30, prompts 1- 9 or pages 157-58, prompts 1-6 • Choose one to answer Time Permitting
- 30. HOMEWORK Remember: Includea thesis statement for your essay Respond to all parts of the prompt Choose an original title Include a works cited page Use MLA style formatting (TNR 12) Include page numbers after quotations • Essay #3 (2-3 pages): Choose your topic from "Suggestions for Writing" pages 129-30, prompts 1-9 or pages 157-58, prompts 1-6 • Post #23 The introduction and thesis for Essay #3 • Post #24 How can we apply the philosophy of Cicero and/or Thoreau to A Game of Thrones?