Compare And Contrast Thoreau And William Wells Brown

William Wells Brown and Henry David Thoreau both wanted to escape in similar but different ways. They both wanted their own sense of freedom and they took great measures to achieve their dreams. This may appear to be contradictory, but in this paper I will explain how even though they are similar, they are also different. I will also be analyzing these works. These observations are withdrawn from, and can be referenced to Brown’s The Narrative of the Life and Escape of William Wells Brown and Thoreau’s “Resistance to Civil Government.” To begin, Brown talks about himself in the third-person in his narrative. This is significant because he wants to distance himself from his story. This might have been his method of helping us understand the facts and it might have also been an attempt to keep the reader from being biased against the story. Thoreau makes his story more like a journal of sorts. Thoreau speaks in first-person because he wants us to understand his point of view of why he does what he does. Brown’s reason for escape is because of slavery. His desire is to escape to Canada, which is significant because Canada did not have any slavery or fugitive-slave laws. In contrast, Thoreau’s reason of escape was not because of slavery, but more of a method of finding deeper …show more content…
This is somewhat similar to Thoreau’s connection with nature. Although Henry David Thoreau had a friend in Ralph Waldo Emerson, he desired to connect with nature; he found serenity in his house in the forest. These two men can have a special connection with nature and its way of comfort. Also in comparison, Brown spent some time of his own in the woods. Granted, this wasn’t because he desired to spend time finding himself and connecting with nature, it provided him with safety and shelter. Brown spent time in the woods to avoid being seen by people on his voyage to