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Rhetorical Analysis Of The Duty Of Civil Disobedience

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In Henry David Thoreau’s essay “The Duty of Civil Disobedience”, he achieves his purpose of sparking inquiry in the American public about their government and encouraging them to speak out on what they surmise as morally unfitting. He obtains his purpose through the use of metaphor and through the act of persistently asking questions throughout the essay to engage the brain to ponder on what their government is actually doing. In order to make the public ponder on how their government runs and actually treats them as citizens, he metaphorically references machines. He sparks inquiry by using metaphors to compare humans to machines. He believes that the government only sees its citizens as machines whose sole purpose is to work for the government. …show more content…

He uses this system as another way to proclaim his opinions. He wants people to be conscientious about the laws and systems taking place around them every day. He wants people to ponder on the idea that “unjust laws exist: shall [they] be content to obey them, or shall [they] transgress them at once?”(6). Thoreau goes on to answer this question by saying most people will not stand up for injustice until someone else makes a stand first. The consequences of standing up to the government frightened the American people, leading to a minimal amount of change to take place in this nation. By making people ponder on the unjust laws in society Thoreau hopes that it will draw more attention to the matter and convince people to help support the cause. Thoreau utilizes this strategy again to draw people’s attention towards the malfunctioning of the current government. He attended to make people question their attitude towards their government. Thoreau asks “how does it become a man to behave towards this American government today? [He answers], that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it. [He] cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as my government” (3). By inquiring this question, Thoreau leaves the reader to question their actions towards the government and whether the government is fulfilling their expectation of the government’s duties. The addition of his personal opinion allowed him to force his viewpoint on his fellow American citizens as he proclaims that he is disgusted with how the government is run. By implementing a system of asking questions, Thoreau allocates a portion of the essay to get the reader thinking about their stance on the topic, but then by inserting his personal opinion immediately following he influences the reader to question the actions of

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