Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau Book Review

The piece, Civil Disobedience, by Henry David Thoreau, reflects the fact that the American Ideal of Justice is not always fair and open to change and this notion is conveyed using the stylistic elements of diction and anaphora parallelism. Throughout the piece, Thoreau tries to illustrate the fact that Americans cannot possibly vouch for change within the bounds of the American justice system. However, this is contradictory to what Americans think of their justice system because they hail it as the best in the world, unrivaled by any other countries. 

This point was first demonstrated when Thoreau speaks about possible avenues to protest the government. He utilizes powerful diction to state that if he were to adopt, “the ways which the State has provided for remedying the evil...[they] take too much time, and a man’s life will be gone, “by the time that process has been completed”(Thoreau). Thoreau’s strong and damning connotation of the phrase, “the evil” in reference to immoral laws, portrays the American justice system as one that does not entertain opposition towards their policies. He also uses very blunt language in the second sentence, which helps to demonstrate just how inherently inefficient the American government is, and how citizens really can’t push for change in a relatively short amount of time. Furthermore, Thoreau uses anaphora parallelism through the form of many repeated questions, pointed towards the American government, when he speaks about providing formal reform for the government:“why is it[the government] not more apt to anticipate and provide[for such changes… Why does it not encourage its citizens to be on the alert to point out its[many] faults, and do better than it would have them?”(Thoreau). 

The repeated utilization of the word, “why…” at the start of each sentence is an example of anaphora parallelism where Thoreau is very directly asking the government why the American citizens are discouraged to voice their opinions on the shortcomings of the government. He alters the tone to become very fast and sharp, and Thoreau uses this technique to very directly highlight the mistreatment of the American ideal of justice and more specifically, how minorities are treated differently than others, in a country where all men are allegedly equal. However, throughout all of this, Thoreau touches on another ideal, that he himself took advantage of when writing this piece. 

That ideal is the idea of being able to find a voice. Even though he was very vocal about the shortcomings of America, many people read this piece and felt the same, and even us students, some 172 years later, are reading this piece and learning more about what we can do for the greater good of our government. Similarly, in Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau critiques the American government, for the greater good of the country,  and uses strong diction along with repeated questions, in the form of anaphora parallelism, to convey the idea that the American Justice System isn’t actually as honorable and as open-minded as it could be, and that there are many flaws in a government that boasts to be flawless.