Rhetorical Analysis Walden

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In this passage from the famous text Walden, the author Henry David Thoreau, a naturalist and transcendentalist, gives an account of his experience while living in isolation at Walden pond for two years of his life. While in isolation, he sought to enjoy life away from the hustle and bustle of society and live more simplistically without concern of the small things in life. Thoreau begins his passage by enforcing the idea that people should live their lives as calmly and purposefully as nature and not worry about the small irrelevant factors in life that consume our attention. Specifically, he states, “Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito’s wing that falls on the rails,” …show more content…

When he writes, “Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature,” he follows it up with the rest of the sentence, which serves to clarify how we should live our lives by including what we should not do, such as losing …show more content…

These unimportant concerns are described when Thoreau writes, “ Let us settle ourselves and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and tradition, and delusion, and appearance...till we come to a hard bottom and rocks in place, which we can call reality...” (Thoreau). Through the use of polysyndeton when he repeats the use of the conjunction “and”, he creates the effect that ideas like “opinion”, “prejudice”, “tradition”, “delusion”, and “appearance” are all just layers that cover and hide reality. Because of this, he stresses the importance of living simply and taking a break from society. By removing oneself from this type of toxic environment, living life more simplistically becomes easier; therefore people prevent themselves from getting involved with all those things that hide reality. In the end, the result is that it allows people to enjoy life without worry. In conclusion, by temporarily removing himself from society and thrusting himself into nature, we are better able to understand how Thoreau conveys his attitude towards life. He believes that in order to enjoy it one must free himself or herself from the high-tempo nature of society, live life more simplistically, and experience the reality that is hidden by all the things that are irrelevant in our

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