I am having trouble understanding the highlighted part of the following passage:
Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere
ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and
superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be
plucked by them.— Walden by Henry Thoreau
I think it means is that "cares" and "labors" are both the objects of "life."
Am I right? If not, what does it mean?
Best Answer
Yes, factitious cares is used as an object of life. Note the definite article the immediately preceding it. This indicates that Thoreau is talking about two things in the same context: "The factitious cares of life" and "the superfluously coarse labors of life". Had he wanted to indicate that the factitious cares are merely general things and not specifically related to life, he would have written:
Thoreau is making a statement about people who lead boring and artificial lives through their own ignorant mistakes. Let's take a look at the meanings of factitious and superfluous:
Factitious cares in the given context therefore means that Thoreau considers most people to be engaged in pursuits that are not natural to them. The people to whom he refers are not working for real, genuine, useful things, but for created ends that serve no real purpose. Worse still, they're unaware that what they're doing is ultimately useless.
Superfluously coarse labors indicates Thoreau's disdain for what he considers unrefined goals and pastimes. He thinks of what the average person does as being excessively crude or unpolished.
To restate it in modern non-poetic English, Thoreau is basically saying:
Or, more casually stated:
Factitious is not in general use in today's standard English. Most people will have to look it up, and it is easily confused with facetious. (I certainly had to look it up, and I did confuse the two words.) You're probably better off using artificial or constructed if you want to convey a similar meaning.