Question

Read the following excerpt from henry david thoreau's "resistance to civil government.":

they think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. but it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil.
which of these rhetorical devices does Thoreau most clearly use here?
A, pathos
B, ethos
C, parallelism
D, personification

Answer 1

C. parallelism

Step-by-step explanation:

This is an example of parallelism. In "Resistance to Civil Government," Thoreau argues that it is a person's moral duty to act according to his own morals and values, regardless of what the law says. Therefore, if a law is unjust, a person is justified in disobeying it. In this passage, Thoreau argues this while employing parallelism. Parallelism refers to the use of sentences or phrases that have the same structure. In this case, Thoreau uses two very similar sentences and repeats several words in order to emphasize an important idea of the passage.

Answer 2

Answer: C) Parallelism.

Step-by-step explanation: parallelism is a literary device that consists in the repetition of the grammatical structure of different words or phrases in a sentence or paragraph, in order to emphasize an idea or to create an impact in the audience. In the given excerpt from Henry David Thoreau's "Resistance to Civil Government" we can see an example of parallelism in the use of the phrase "the remedy is worse than the evil."