Analysis of Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience", "Walden", and "Walking".
Henry David Thoreau said of himself "I am a Schoolmaster – a Private Tutor, a Surveyor – a Gardener, a Farmer – a Painter, I mean a House Painter, a Carpenter, a Mason, a Day-Laborer, a Pencil-Maker, a Glass-paper Maker, a Writer, and sometimes a Poetaster (The Correspondence of Henry David Thoreau 186). His critics, his contemporaries then and now, casual readers or students of literature may classify Thoreau differently, among the champions of justice, individual rights, transcendentalist's, social reformers, and naturalists. Nevertheless, most notable is his place in history as an acclaimed writer. To analyze and better understand his prose, it is necessary to be acquainted with some key points in Thoreau's life and the political, social, economic, and environmental atmosphere of 19th century antebellum America.
America was in a period of major change in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It was a notable period of expansion, change, and social, political, and economic inequities, with slavery at the forefront. Mechanization changed the nature of work and the role of labor. Transportation changed with the advent of the steam engine and transcontinental railway. The population was growing and changing partly because of reform and revolution in Europe. "Manifest Destiny" accelerated westward migration as well as dissent within the American government and between itself and its citizens. There was increased industrialization and urbanization in the North causing economic hardship in agricultural areas of the country such as the South. The issue of slavery would divide the country and throw it into civil war. Thoreau would write in difficult times.
On 12 July 1817 in Concord, Massachusetts, John Thoreau and Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau, give birth to a baby boy they name David Henry Thoreau.
