Battle of the Ants Essay

Henry David Thoreau uses ants to describe his view of human wars that have occurred in history. In the beginning of the Walden story he states, “I went to the woods since I wanted to live”. He goes on to suggest that he wanted to learn from the woods. Incidentally, he meets with ants in combat. Clearly, he personifies the ants in a bid to make a connection between them and humans. The first attempt to make a comparison between the two is when he compares the war between the ants with that between the Trojans and Greeks. Such a comparison indicates the motivation and intentions of the author. He seeks to approach human wars in an allegorical manner rather than directly because the latter would attract aggression and opposition from his society.

In the writing, he notes that there are differences between human battles and ant battles. While human beings will fight for materialistic possessions, the ants, on the other hand, fight because of their principle. When dating the ant battle, Thoreau makes mentions of the Fugitive Slave Act, which is an additional example of the valor of ants’ battles relative to human conflicts. What is more, Thoreau believed at the time that armed confrontation was only relevant in cases of slavery.

During his observation of the ants fighting, he notices that he was not watching a simple battle, but the battle of the ants. He uses this opportunity to indicate the manner to which the brutal struggle for life and death mimics the human wars. In widening the scope of war that he was witnessing between the three ants, he refers to them as Myrmidons, which is a means of invoking the images of Greek warriors in their endeavors of conquering all lands. Still, it is not until at the end of the paragraph that he does indicate a more sound comparison. He refers to the battle as the “Black imperialists and Red Republicans Internecine war”. Hence, he is comparing the red ants to people of that day and the black ants to the imperial parties that were ruling during the time.

            In his writing, Thoreau compares the ant battles to human wars, which is an effort to indicate the nature of humans. According to him, the wars by humans are because of wealth possessions or their understanding of material wealth. At one point, Thoreau focuses his attention on individual combatants. He observes that small red ant fights with a large ant and interprets this to mean their philosophy is to either conquer or die. According to him, this is the same case with humans. They employ all the available tactics in their bid to conquer all, which includes using foreigners to fight in their wars. In addition, humans use propaganda in the human wars so that they can win their battles. Lastly, he ridicules human wars and the behaviors of the citizens of conflicting nations. They will sing their respective rhythmical music to excite them while their combatants are dying in the war fields.

            Towards the final paragraph, the author concentrates on one black ant and two red ones. The three are battling on a woodchip that he extracted from the battlefield and observed using a microscope at home. In his example of the ghastly awards that hang from saddlebow, he is comparing the horrific human battles to living heads of killed ants that were now covering the combatants under his observation. According to him, even after the realization of the mass killings that occur during wars, they continue to fight. It is for these reasons that he wonders about the fate of the surviving ant. Once the black ant emerges victorious and walks away, he wonders the meaning of this turn of events and the effects of the war on the black ant itself. Clearly, this is a direct indication of the effects that wars have on human beings and their ignorance to that fact. Thoreau suggests that wars negatively affect humans, but humans either ignore it or are unaware of this fact.

            I agree with Thoreau that wars have been part of humans for a long time. Similar to the ants, humans fight with little regard of the damages their actions have on themselves and their families. Despite evidence that wars led to deaths and destroy economies, countries continue to prepare themselves for war. The United States, Russia, and China are in the forefront of funding their military in preparedness of possible battles in the future. The First World War facilitated the creation of the League of Nations to prevent possible war outbreaks, but the Second World War will soon take place. What is more, despite lessons learned from wars in Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan, the world continues to fight for material wealth as suggested by Thoreau.