ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -“If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter-we never need read of another.”

Detailed explanation-2: -Thoreau declared that if the government required people to participate in injustice by obeying “unjust laws, ” then people should “break the laws” even if they ended up in prison. “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, ” he asserted, “the true place for a just man is also a prison.”

Detailed explanation-3: -He believed that sensationalist newspaper articles–the mid-19th century equivalent of local television news–were a distraction. ‘’If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned we never need read of another, ” he writes.

Detailed explanation-4: -MAIN POINT 1: Thoreau prefers a laissez-faire government, but he does not call for abolishing government.