Student Question

In Walden, why did Thoreau compare the ant battle to the Battle of Concord?

Quick answer:

Thoreau is reminded of the Battle of Concord as he watches red and black ants fight near his wood pile. A pacifist, he compare the ants' fight to the legendary battle at Concord to lightheartedly ridicule warfare.

Expert Answers

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Thoreau sees an army of red ants battle an army of black ants near the woodpile by his cabin on Walden Pond. He gets involved in the ferocity of their battle, and he compares it to the Battle of Concord; he has never witnessed a real battle, but the Battle of Concord would have been well known to him as it took place only two miles away from Walden Pond.

Thoreau likens the red ants to the "imperialists," the British, and the black ants to the "republicans" or Americans. He imagines the black ants killed in the battle as three Americans killed in the Concord battle: Blanchard, Davis, and Hosmer. He compares every attacking black ant to Buttrick, the American commander who gave the order to fire on the British.

Thoreau was a pacifist, and by comparing one of the most stirring and mythologized battles in the American Revolution to a fight between ants by a woodpile, he is heaping a light-hearted ridicule on war, and in particular the Revolutionary War. He points out, too, that the Battle of Concord is a paltry affair compared to the some of battles in the Napoleonic wars, and concludes that there is not much difference between ants and humans when it comes to fighting. In this way, he jokingly deflates the heroism of warfare.

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