Part one of term paper
The extremely simplified definition of civil disobedience given by Webster’s Dictionary is “nonviolent opposition to a law through refusal to comply with it, on grounds of conscience.” Thoreau in “Civil Disobedience” and Martin Luther King in “Letter from Birmingham Jail” both argue that laws thought of as unjust in one’s mi ...

Part two of term paper
... to work and has nothing to do with civil disobedience. Thoreau says that if injustice “is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say break the law” (Jacobus 134). He is personally giving permission for an individual to ignore anything he or she finds morally unacceptable. However, in “Bartleby,” Bartleby’s boss places no unjust laws and assigns no unjust work. He simply asks Bartleby to do easy tasks such as, “when those papers are all co ...