Excerpt from Walden

Henry David Thoreau

Given how Thoreau compares the striped snake's behavior to how men behave, what can be inferred about Thoreau's opinion concerning how men live?

In this text, Thoreau compares the way in which a stripped snake behaves to the way humans behave. He tells us that the snake would lay on the bottom when it went into the water, and remain there. According to Thoreau, the snake was missing the blooming of spring and the beauty of nature by behaving in this way. He compares the snake to the way in which humans behave. He argues that the current way of society is the way of degradation, and that we also live at the bottom. We are too focused on ourselves and our material possessions to come out and enjoy the natural world, which deserves appreciation and has the ability to make us reach a "higher life."

the correct answer can either be a or b because it could be both but you should probally choose b