Thoreau

"I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, two or three feet thick, the door of wood and iron, a foot thick, and the iron grating which strained the light, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up. I wondered that it should have concluded at length that this was the best use it could put me to, and had never thought to avail itself of my services in some way. I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through, before they could get to be as free as I was. I did not for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar. I felt as if I alone of all my townsmen had paid my tax. They plainly did not know how to treat me, but behaved like persons who are underbred. In every threat and in every compliment there was a blunder; for they thought that my chief desire was to stand the other side of that stone wall. I could not but smile to see how industriously they locked the door on my meditations, which followed them out again without let or hindrance, and they were really all that was dangerous. As they could not reach me, they had resolved to punish my body; just as boys, if they cannot come at some person against whom they have a spite, will abuse his dog. I saw that the State was half-witted, that it was timid as a lone woman with her silver spoons, and that it did not know its friends from its foes, and I lost all my remaining respect for it, and pitied it."

I took this passage from the second part of Thoreau's writing. In this piece he is talking about his experience being in jail. He did not pay his poll-tax for six years and therefor was put into jail for one night. He describes the setting as having thick solid stone walls and a thick iron and wood door. He seems amused by what he describes as foolishness of this jail. He describes being treated as if he were nothing but flesh, blood, and bones. He says; "If there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was still a more difficult one to climb or break through, before they could get to be as free as I was." This to me is a very powerful line in that he is saying this stone wall he is confined in, seperating him from the rest of his town, there is "a much bigger wall" they will have to break through before they can be as free as he was. The much bigger wall he is talking about is the one blocking the rest of the people from seeing the truth, from understanding what they are really living in. He is in jail but feels freer then those who are not in jail. He is free in the sense that he knows who he is what is right and stands by what he believes in while others give in to what "higher authority" wants them to believe and goes by the way the government wants them to live. That is not being free.

I found this passage the most interesting because of the way Thoreau describes the jail setting and his thoughts while being confined behind cell walls. Instead of feeling vulnerable and caged, he pitied those outside the cell walls who in his eyes are not free at all. Although being encarcerated Thoreau did not feel "locked up" at all, he knew he was free.