Henry David Thoreau Loves to be Alone

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“I love to be alone.” It is one of the shortest sentences in the entire chapter, and yet it has so much to say. However, its simplicity is what makes it so complex. It is so short, that the reader cannot fully understand what Henry David Thoreau means by that. There are two basic things it could mean. More specifically, the usage of the word “alone” could mean two things. One meaning is that Thoreau loves to be alone from society, meaning people. The other is that Thoreau loves to be completely alone, away from both humans/society as well as nature. However, that meaning of the sentence makes Thoreau seem quite paradoxal. If by saying “I love to be alone,” Thoreau means that he loves to be away from society, it actually fits in context with the rest of the chapter. He continually portrays his repulsion of society. Then again, it is more of a repulsion of the way society is today. Thoreau does not like the way society treats one another. In fact he believes that society forces us to change from who and what we really are. Thoreau says, ““Society is commonly too cheap… we have had ...

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