Language, Visual and Imaginary

Thorough all of Thoreau’s writing, he finds ways to elaborate on his thoughts to an exhaustive extent. This often leaves the reader with little to imagine or picture. In the chapter Economy, this trend continues. To begin with, Thoreau has a self-dialogue on page 117 where he is talking about the weather in his region from the past up to the current time. He states those who knew about the history of weather wouldn’t be too surprised what was being encountered. While the people who didn’t have this knowledge would be quite surprised by it. This self-dialogue distracted my comprehension because of the shift in his dialogue to a self-discussion. In addition to the filler language which Thoreau uses he additionally uses language that creates strong imagery. Toward the end of Economy Thoreau talks about the way in which the priest rubs the sticks together to create fire in the town public square. Following that he describes the ways in which the people consume food and dance for the following three days. He states that people from different villages have prepared themselves in like fissions as each other. This all exemplifies the way in which Thoreau goes into detail about every aspect of his surroundings to ensure the reader can visualize what he is seeing. This while beneficial to the clarity of his writing can leave little to the imagination which can frustrate some audiences.

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