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 concerning their government, and he encourages the population to speak out on what they surmise as morally unfitting. He obtains his purpose through his use of metaphors and the act of persistently asking questions throughout the essay, in order to engage a person’s mind to ponder on what their government is actually doing. In order to make the public contemplate on how their government runs and actually treats them as citizens, Henry Thoreau metaphorically references machines as he sparks inquiry by comparing them to humans.He believes that the authority only sees its citizens as machines whose sole purpose is to work for the …show more content…
The American public “serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They put themselves on the level of wood and earth and stones… [they] command no more respect than a man of straw or a lump of dirt” (2). This sparks curiosity within the public as they now inquire what their sole purpose is. They want to know how the government views them, and they now contemplate if they are only considered as a machine to the government. Thoreau also utilizes the rhetorical strategy of polysyndeton when he repeats the word “and” to emphasize the many earthly things that the government values humans as. Thoreau’s metaphoric reference of machinery appears again, but this time the country represents the machine. The government works like a machine and “all machines have their friction, and possibly this does enough good to counterbalance the evil… But when the friction comes to have its machine, and oppression and robbery are organized, [Thoreau says], let us not have such a machine any longer” (3). Thoreau tries to advocate ridding the country of a no longer effective government when deemed necessary. Thoreau uses the machine
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