Thoreau’s Influence on Abby’s Desert Solitaire Anonymous College

It was soon after the American Revolution that Thoreau, one of the most influential literary figures of the 19th Century, questioned the effective freedom and happiness of American citizens. The Declaration of Independence stated that all men have some unalienable rights among which “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” (Jefferson) are to be found. According to Thoreau, people “have no time to be anything but a machine” (5). In other words, work has dehumanized people preventing them from enjoying their lives, friendships, and “true integrity day by day” (Thoreau 5). The condition of the laboring man takes one back to the British tyranny of the past or even worse, a kind of self-enslavement in which Americans become their own victims. Thoreau proposes a return to a primitive state in contrast with the industrial revolution and the emerging capitalist system which threaten man’s individuality and liberty. By naturalizing the capitalist ideology, society has made Americans believe that they are free, but actually, they have been enslaved by their own sense of duties and obligations to conform to societal expectations.

Almost two centuries later, Edward Abbey condemns the mainstream society for being too attached to this...