A Comparison Of Earthbound By Bell Hooks And Ralph Waldo Emerson

Transcendentalism is a movement that pushes back against conformity and transitional order. Transcendentalists value nature, individual thought, and believe that people, God, and nature are all connected. To begin, Ralph Waldo Emerson is the son of a Christian minister. He trains to become a pastor, but disagrees with the religion. He is the author of Self-Reliance and argues for individual thinking. He believes that people are often held back from greatness by others. Earthbound is written by Bell Hooks, who is a descendant of sharecroppers and slaves. Her belief is that nature equalizes humans. Together, Bell Hooks and Ralph Waldo Emerson suggest that while it is easier to follow the trends of society, it is more rewarding to follow the inner spirit

When discussing the difficulty of not listening to others’ opinions, Emerson states, “It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who is the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude…” (2). Here, Emerson describes a great man as one who follows their own instincts. He highlights the idea that although it is easy to follow one’s own opinion when alone, people are at their best when they follow their own instincts in a group of people. Next, Hooks describes what she has learned from the backwoods. When discussing the wrong idea that backwoods folks have taught her, Hooks writes, “In the backwoods one learned to trust only the spirit, to follow where the spirit moved” (68). Here, Hooks displays that she follows the spirit through the backwoods and trusts only her spirit. The backwoods is a remote, uncleared forest land. So, Hooks suggests that she learns to follow her spirit because of nature. She doesn’t follow the ideas of the other backwoods