a. While I agree with many of the ideas that Thoreau presents in this essay, I also think that in a lot of ways he takes his ideas too far. It is very true that people are enslaved to the idea that they need to own things, and it causes them to work their lives away. While I would agree that it’s bad that people can get so obsessed with the material, I also think that many people are not able to live the way that Thoreau chooses to. His belief in his way of living works for him, but it doesn’t have to work for everyone. We can definitely cut down on what we deem to be necessary, but we also don’t need to cause ourselves suffering for the sake of fighting off the common way. For example, while he gives up everything to live off the land in a house in the woods, which he built, that is very doable for him, but would definitely not be possible for other kinds of people, such as people with families.