Answer one or more
1. Write a literary text analysis of the passage that goes from "I see young men" to "break through and steal" (p. 110 anthology, p. 1769 of the text)
2. What points of contact do you find between the excerpt from Walden, "Economy", and chapter 14 of Huckleberry Finn?
3. "Civil Disobediece", first titled "Resistance to Civil Government" gave name to a strategy of power of the regular citizen. In which ways do Huck and Finn commit civil disobedience and in which ways are they liable to regular/petty crimes?
2 comments:
The clause “my townsmen” adds a personal element to the testimony written in these lines. It points us towards a personal testimony: he knows what he’s talking about, it’s not heresay.
In terms of the semantic field, Thoreau uses vocabulary around condemnation - there’s an element of mysticism surrounding the negative conditions he describes: these men are “misfortun[ate]”, serfs, digging their graves; their soul is “crushed and smothered”, in an almost Sisyphean task of carrying this load.
The load in question is an inherited material possession, as made clear in the enumeration (“farms (…) farming tools”). It’s interesting to pose their task as “eating” their sixty acres - a hereditary curse. It reminds me of Tantalus and how his hubris stained the house of Atreides, culminating in Agamemnon’s multiple crimes, but making sure to always make clear that their house is cursed, and the curse is inherited because Tantalus tried to trick the gods into eating his son, Pelops. These men, then, cannot taste freedom (just as Tantalus cannot eat or drink at all in Tartarus) - they only eat their inherited burden.
Another Classical reference is, I believe, when Thoreau mentions the wolf suckling the babes, which reminds me of Romulus and Remus, born free despite the burden they would come to carry - which is why I think it’s not a perfect analogy.
Burden then, in this excerpt, seems to mean spending the few years one has stuck to materiality, finite, which is not a natural state according to Thoreau.
The portionless only need to cultivate themselves, which is something the others don’t have time for. This idea of self cultivation also comes from the classical etymology: colo, to nurture. to cherish and even to honor.
Beatriz Simões
As Thoreau states in the beginning of the narrative, “in most books I, or first person, is omitted, but in this it will be retained.” The passage starts with I, making the narrative plausible and sincere, as readers can identify the narrator as the author himself.
The apostrophe “my townsmen” catches readers’ attention and identifies the original target audience of the book.
The same sentence continues with the paradox, reinforced by enumeration: “whose misfortune is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools.” This part has some comic, or even better mocking effect: the greater the inheritance, the greater the trouble.
“Born in the open pasture and suckled by a wolf” alludes to the story of Romulus and Remus who learn about their royal lineage only after becoming natural leaders due to their own efforts. The same Thoreau wants for his townsmen: making their own life decisions and judgment on worldly affairs and not being influenced by their inheritance.
The other paradox is presented by “serfs of soil”, as we know that the people in question are farm owners, not slaves.
“They eat their sixty acres” is a metaphor, just as “man is condemned to eat only his peck of dirt (most probably an allegory for the hardships and struggles, but maybe also poverty).
One more paradox: “they begin digging their graves as soon as they are born.”
Three phrases in a row are rhetorical questions: Who made them? Why should they? Why should they? It helps the narrative gain momentum for the next argument.
There is one more allusion - to the story of Hercules, more precisely his seventh labor on the way to become a god. Interestingly, the same phrase contains paradox, as, according to the legend, during his life on earth Hercules was half immortal, or better said not immortal but with some divine abilities which helped him accomplish all twelve labors. On the contrary, Thoreau calls his fellow human “immortal soul” whose Augean stables are though never cleansed.
- Anna Holovina
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