Pre-Flight for
"Civil Disobedience"

Printable Version (opens in new window)

The inspiration for "Civil Disobedience" was a night that Henry David Thoreau spent in prison. Thoreau went to prison because he refused to pay a poll tax of $1.50. In Walden, Thoreau's most famous book, he wrote,

One afternoon, near the end of the first summer, when I went to the village to get a shoe from the cobbler's, I was seized and put into jail, because I did not pay a tax to, or recognize the authority of, the state which buys and sells men, women, and children, like cattle at the door of its senate-house.

Thoreau was opposed to slavery. He wrote and spoke on the topic: "Slavery in Massachusetts" and "A Plea for Captain John Brown" are two examples. Some accounts say Thoreau was also protesting the Mexican War (1846-48) of which he was strongly opposed.

Sometimes it is hard to remember that the people who are famous in our day, particularly many writers of the past, were not famous or, in some cases, well-repected in their day. Thoreau's books were considered publishing failures. Thoreau had to pay to have his first book published and most of the copies were returned to him prompting him to write, "I have now a library of nearly nine hundred volumes, over seven hundred of which I wrote myself." Walden sold less than 2,000 copies during his lifetime and yet, "Civil Disodedience" (and his other writings) written by a man who was considered strange, eccentric and lazy by some of his neighbors has influenced thousands and thousands of people all over the world.

©2005-2012 Glen Draeger (all rights reserved)
Millstone Education: World Literature / http://www.millstoneeducation.com/worldLit