Reading Check and Short Answer Questions on key textual elements are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.

Reading Check

1. What does Thoreau believe has “furthered” enterprise in the United States?

2. How is Thoreau different from “no-government men”?

3. What does Thoreau compare gambling to using a simile?

4. Why is the U.S. Constitution “evil”?

5. Where is the “true place for a just man”?

Short-Answer Response

Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Describe Thoreau’s argument about following the law versus following one’s conscience.

2. What does Thoreau believe is the appropriate response to slavery in the United States? Why hasn’t this response occurred?

3. What tax did Thoreau not pay? What was he forced to do as a result?

Recommended Next Reads

Into the Wild

• The 1996 account by Jon Krakauer of Christopher McCandless’s travels across North America
• In what ways did Christopher McCandless embody the ideals of Transcendentalism?

Antigone

• An Ancient Greek tragedy by the playwright Sophocles
• Compare and contrast Antigone and Thoreau’s approaches to Fighting Injustice With Passive Resistance.