Gandhi and Thoreau

One of the main differences that i noticed between the speech by Gandhi and the essay written by Thoreau. The main difference that i noticed between the two essays was basically just the tone that the essays were written in. For example, in the essay written by Thoreau, i tended to notice that in his essay, he tends to write with a much more aggressive tone in his work than Gandhi tends to have in his speech. For example, in his essay, the reader or audience, will find much more clear emotion and anger in his writing, or in the writing of Thoreau, than you will in the speech of Gandhi. In the speech written by Thoreau, some examples of Emotion that the writer will find in his work that the reader will not find in Gandhi's speech is the fact that the essay written has many exclamation marks, showing that Thoreau is using a lot of emotion to the point where he is almost shouting his words at the reader (Thoreau 223). Also in his writing, the reader or audience will tend to see that Thoreau is quite frankly, just simply saying what he thinks is wrong with the government and what is wrong with society (Thoreau 223). Basically, he is very up front about it and it almost seems like hedoes not care what other people think about it. His just wants people to know his opinion and to see his point of view with the government and also with society. Something that he also includes in his essay is that he basically gives his opinion on how he thinks that the government could be fixed and how he would change it if he could (Thoreau 223). This is much different than how the speech of Gandhi is written. I mean, sure, Gandhi also likes to show his emotion within his very own speech, but compared to Thoreau, the tome of Gandhi really is not as aggressive as the tone of Thoreau (Gandhi 229). Within the speech of Gandhi, the reader will tend to notice that there are not as many exclamation marks in his speech as there are within the writing of Gandhi. Also, within the speech of Gandhi, instead of telling the people of India what to do to stop or protest the tax on salt the the British had on India, they actually did protest it by taking sea salt from the ocean to protest the tax on salt (Gandhi 229). In a way, i believe that this makes Gandhi a much more powerful writer than Thoreau. I think this because all Thoreau really did in his speech was just be angry and just give his opinion on how the government could improve (Gandhi 229). By being angry, it almost seems like Thoreau almost seems helpless when he is writing because is seems like he is angry simply just because he knows that he cannot convince anyone that he is correct. On the other hand, Gandhi is very powerful because he influences all of India and is one of the most influential writers in India.

Gandhi, and Douglas Fisher. "On the Eve of Historic Dandi March." Glencoe Literature. New York: Glencoe McGraw-Hill, 2009. 229-31. Print.

Thoreau, and Douglas Fisher. "Civil Disobedience." Glencoe Literature. New York: Glencoe McGraw-Hill, 2009. 222-28. Print.