ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -There were no income taxes and Thoreau did not own enough land to worry about property taxes; but there was the hated poll tax – a capital tax levied equally on all adults within a community. Thoreau declined to pay the tax and so, in July 1846, he was arrested and jailed.

Detailed explanation-2: -Between the time he moved in and his departure from Walden on September 6, 1847, Thoreau lived self-sufficiently, as he wrote in the first paragraph of Walden “earning my living by the labor of my hands only.” He fished and grew beans, potatoes, corn, peas, and turnips, selling what he did not need for his own use.

Detailed explanation-3: -Thoreau argued that the government must end its unjust actions to earn the right to collect taxes from its citizens. As long as the government commits unjust actions, he continued, conscientious individuals must choose whether to pay their taxes or to refuse to pay them and defy the government.

Detailed explanation-4: -Thoreau describes the tax gatherer as the agent of the government, who chose this position. Since it is “with men and not with parchment that I quarrel” the tax gatherer is his only contact with the government and therefore the means for his civil disobedience.

Detailed explanation-5: -He lived a simple and relatively quiet life, making his living briefly as a teacher and pencil maker but mostly as a land surveyor. Thoreau had intimate bonds with his family and friends (the loss of his brother John in 1842 was a major trauma) and remained unmarried, although he was deeply in love at least twice.