Thoreau & Walden

1. He moved there to live in a peaceful environment away from city life so he could write a book about his deceased brother.

2. He was living there solitarily, and experienced the industrial revolution taking place everyday since the railroad was in close proximity of his cabin.

3. What Thoreau criticized about modern life was that people were living lives filled with difficulty and complexity, believing that people should live modest, simple lives, keeping modern technology to a minimum.

4. I have to politely disagree with Thoreau's critique because technology exists to facilitate people's lives, not make them even harder, even though technology does have it's good affects and it's bad ones. He did make a good argument in that people should lead simple lives, but simplicity can result in monotony, aside from increased effort in living.