1) Henry David Thoreau states that although the people elect their government, the government will seek for ways to abuse the powers given to them by the people. The government wouldn’t have been where it is now if it wasn’t for the people because the people decided that they needed a system that represents society in one voice. Thoreau begins the essay the way he did because he wanted to captivate the reader’s attention from the initial point rather than losing them to the fact that he has being held in jail. If he established his setting in the paper, then no one will care to listen more since they’ll make assumptions that he is a biased man.
2) In paragraph two, Thoreau sets the tone of antipathy because he informs the reader that he has had enough of the government’s way of managing the people. Thoreau provides an example which supports his position by saying “It does not keep the country free. It does not settle the West. It does not educate”, meaning he finds the government to…show more content… “How shall he ever know well what he is and does as an officer of the government” is an example of pathos because Thoreau shows how concerned he is for his neighbor since he can’t see what he has become (947). The government is being represented by the tax collectors, who are “voluntarily chosen to be an agent of the government” and transformed to a state where people don’t recognize them anymore (947). Thoreau causes the reader to realize that men were too afraid of speaking out by using the following quote, “…if one HONEST man… were actually to withdraw from his copartnership, and be locked upon the county jail therefor, it would be the abolition of slavery in America” (947). People don’t have to make a drastic change throughout the night, but all one needs is the courage to attempt to do something extraordinary for a greater
