Civil Disobedience Rhetorical Analysis

Henry David Thoreau’s essay “Civil Disobedience” discusses why man should resist the oppressive government and the evil inflicted upon him in the form of law. He illustrates that this evil will never cease to exist as long as man lets it, so the only way to stop the it is to disobey, resist, and rebel in order to bring a change to the government. Thoreau advocates for the idea of rebellion by saying, “They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil” (2). The government's solution for revolution is to punish those who oppose them with incarceration and/or violence, which is worse than the consequence they receive if they just …show more content…
Thoreau’s message is delivered to mankind in order to bring an end to a repressive government and bring the fall to this controversial decision that man is forced to decide upon. Society often tries to propose the solution of this government in a way outside of breaking the law. Thoreau explains that this cannot work by stating, “As for adopting the ways which the State has provided for remedying the evil, I know not of such ways. They take too much time, and a man's life will be gone. I have other affairs to attend to” (2). Man cannot dedicate himself to making the world a better place by legal means because the process the government uses will take his entire life, and by the time he has finally changed the evil, he will have wasted his whole life. The only way the man can resist the government successfully without throwing away his life is by breaking the laws and push to bring an end to the government. The government provides another way for man to legally change the world, by