People today look at the poor with scorn in their eyes. Not to mention they get grossed out when they have to even walk by them on the streets. Today, you see the poor begging on the streets and you can’t help but feel sorry for them. Some people though, think that the poor are the sorriest bunch of suckers around and that their lives have no meaning. But, according to Henry David Thoreau, the poor have some of the best lives compared to all of us that aren’t. The article, “Comfort Zones” quotes the bible saying, “‘This poor widow put more than all the other contributors’ (Mk 12:43)” The poor contributes more than you know. Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden” greatly describes how the poor are better because life if still great, they get independence, and money doesn’t help buy your soul.
Thoreau mentions a few times in “Walden” that life may not seem as great to the poor, but deep down it really is. He mentions that we should all meet our lives and live it. We shouldn’t be embarrassed about how our life is at all. It may not be to our liking, but we should face it head on and make the effort to change it. Thoreau mentions that our life “looks poorest when you are richest.” Richer people are out of touch with the real world. They don’t know how it feels to be in debt. That is why the poor have a better handle on their lives than people who aren’t living in poverty. Thoreau also tells us to love our lives no matter how poor we are. The rich have more faults in paradise than the ones in poverty. The article, “Walden” by Linda Corrente states that Thoreau “urges us to meet our lives, regardless of what they hold for us.” People in poverty already do that. They are aware of the hardships and have faced different ways to beat it.
“Walden...
... middle of paper ...
...’s Ripple Effect” explains “A person is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.” That is what defines being rich? Money may buy a lot of things, but it can’t make your life better by the soul. We need to broaden our view of the world we live in and delve into its beauty. We are all so blind to our lives.
Works Cited
Corrente, Linda.. Walden. Barron's, 2004. eLibrary. Web. 11 Nov. 2012.
Feldmeier, Peter. "Comfort Zones." America. 05 Nov. 2012: 39. eLibrary. Web. 11 Nov. 2012.
Homme, Prud., Richard. "Walden's Economy of Living." Raritan. 01 Jan. 2001: 107. eLibrary. Web. 11
Nov. 2012.
Richardson, D, Robert.. "Walden's Ripple Effect." Smithsonian. 01 Aug. 2004: 106. eLibrary. Web. 11 Nov. 2012.
Thoreau, Henry David. Works of Henry David Thoreau: Critical Commentary. MacMillan General Reference, 1963. eLibrary. Web. 11 Nov. 2012.
Thoreau, Henry David. "Walden." The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998. 2107-2141.
I wasn’t poor but I wasn’t rich either, I was surrounded by an environment in which many people where in need of shelter and food because their families could not afford both. Just like poverty played a major role in my life, so did an ambitious and hardworking environment. Because those people I would see every day on the streets without food or a home, were the ones that had a bigger passion than anyone else, to one day be able to have a stable job and home for their family. This has shaped me to be who I am today, because I greatly appreciate what I have and take advantage of the opportunities I am given because not everyone is lucky enough to have what one
Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. Norton Anthology of American Literature. Shorter Fourth Edition. New York: W.W. Norton, 1995. 788-829.
Hooks says, “It is better to be poor than to allow another person to assert power over you in ways that are dehumanizing and cruel” (435). Weather poor or rich everyone deserves and opportunity to be successful in life and shouldn’t be stereotyped. Everyone deserves the chance to be successful in life and have the same equal opportunities. Poverty is everywhere in this world some worse than others. Living in poverty once in life it can actually be a learning experience. To see and experience the struggle gives them not only a better understanding but appreciate what they have.
Have you ever woke up in the morning and asked yourself, “Why am I living this life?” Throughout the book of Walden, Henry David Thoreau questions the lifestyles that people choose; he makes his readers wonder if they have chosen the kind of lifestyle that give them the greatest amount of happiness. Thoreau stated, “Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them().” This quote is important because most of society these days are so caught up in work and trying to make ends meet that they lose the values in life. Thoreau was forced to change his life when he found himself unhappy after a purchase for a farm fell through. On Thoreau’s journey he moves to Walden and builds a house and life from nothing but hard work, symbolizes many different objects.
Though best known as a literary figure, Henry Thoreau showed a lasting interest in science. He read widely in the scientific literature of his day and published one the first scholarly discussions on forest succession. In fact, some historians rate Thoreau as one of the founders of the modern science of ecology. At the same time, Thoreau often lamented science’s tendency to kill poetry. Scientific writings coupled with his own careful observations often revealed life to him, but in other ways rendered nature lifeless. Modern-day Thoreauvians are also aware that science has largely become a tool for control and increased consumption, rather than for the appreciation and protection of wild nature. This paper explores some of Thoreau’s reflections on science and "system," and presents his view of the proper role of science in our lives. As will become clear, Thoreau’s worries are occasioned by his own scientific endeavors. His responses to science’s insufficiencies are reformist, suggesting ways to improve and supplement science rather than discard it.
Henry Thoreau uses specific rhetorical strategies in Walden to emanate his attitude towards life. With the use of many strategies Thoreau shows that life should be centered around Nature. People live their lives not ever taking a second glance of what Nature does and has done for humanity and Thoreau is trying to prove his point. Humanity owes Nature everything for without it humans would be nothing.
Living a life of poverty is seen as shameful in this day and age but
1. Thoreau states that, “men labor under a mistake” and that “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Thoreau in the first quote is saying that men work for all the wrong reasons. This statement carries great truth because Thoreau believe that we should work just so we have enough to survive. Thoreau does not want us to work to have these surplused luxuries that many do have. This statement contains truth because why should people work so hard to be able to pay to go on a luxurious vacation which they won’t even be able to enjoy because when they get back they are going to have to keep working again to pay for it. So many pick up all these extra hours on the job so they can pay for their family to go out to dinner, and have new cars all of which he implies are luxuries. In the second quote Thoreau is saying this to show the negatives in his perspective of how bad mainstream American lifestyle is. He is trying to explain that most men have really bad lives and are living really badly but don’t do anything or say anything about it. I think that this statement presented here does in fact contain some truth. So many men today are unhappy with their lives so all they do is find other things to take up their time like working more, or random hobbies in which they would do so they don't have to deal with their lives. All of these men are so upset with the way that their lives are struggling but just quietly let it go by. These quotes that Thoreau are saying both contain a lot of truth in them.
We see this in lines 25-32 of Elegy; “Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, their furrow oft the stubborn glebe had broke; how jocund did they drive their team afield! How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke! Let not ambition mock their useful toil, their homely joys and destiny obscure…the short and simple annals of the poor.” Gray is telling the readers to respect the poor because they have to work hard to just make it by, rather than have wealth thrown at them from everywhere. This is still true today; in our modern day society there are a lot of people who are born into wealthy families who don’t know what it’s like to work a day in their lives. These same people also have a very good tendency to judge the people who aren’t as fortunate as they are, but the truth is those less fortunate people have to work harder to survive. It’s easy for us to take things for granted until we no longer have them, rich people take their money for granted and have no idea what it’s like to live in poverty. Gray tells these fortunate people not to think highly of themselves because they have money, he tells them to respect the poor for what they have to do, especially the things they do to help the wealthy. He also touches on the idea that the simple people of the world are better off because
There is a saying that suggest “A rich man is nothing but a poor man with money”. So often people are judged for the amount of money they have or for the materialistic things that they may or may not have. We see charity’s and fundraisers daily raising money to help not only the poor but it some cases it could be the rich. Most people often say the rich stay rich because they do not want to give up their money to help with the poor. In “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor” by: Garrett Hardin and “A Modest Proposal” by: Jonathan Swift their views on the rich helping the poor are vastly different due to personal experiences, logic, and ultimately everyday life.
To conclude, Thoreau believed that people should be ruled by conscience and that people should fight against injustice through non-violence according to “Civil Disobedience.” Besides, he believed that we should simplify our lives and take some time to learn our essence in the nature. Moreover, he deemed that tradition and money were unimportant as he demonstrated in his book, Walden. I suggested that people should learn from Thoreau to live deliberately and spend more time to go to the nature instead of watching television, playing computer games, and among other things, such that we could discover who we were and be endeavored to build foundations on our dreams.
Thoreau, Henry. Walden or, Life in the Woods. 1854. New York: Dover Publications, 1995. Print.
Rich people are the selfish people that only care about their wealth and about their
..., a person who earns $25,000 is happier than a person who makes $125,000 and an employee who makes $500,000 is only slightly happier than someone who makes $55,000. Lastly, there are more important things in life that and make you happy, for example, friends. They don’t come with a price tag, and if they do, you definitely need new friends. Money won’t make you happy since good times can’t be bought. You don’t need a fancy vacation to have a good time; it’s just a matter of who you spend it with. Over the years, humans have blown the value of money way out of proportion. People make it seem like if you’re not filthy rich, then you won’t live a good life but it’s not true. You can lack money and yet still live a perfect, happy life.