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Emerson's Themes Of Friendship In Emerson's Essays On Friendship

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Emerson's essay on friendship is one of the most remembered and highly respected essays dating back to the 19th century. The information given in the essay is extremely valuable and has helped to explain the universal truth that is friendship. Emerson's essay on friendship is his way of delineating the paths of coherence. These parts fall into two distinct kinds. The first is the consistent enunciation of a view which is the master-tone that Emerson uses from essay to essay while the second is the internal linking of the views in the essay. Some scholars have argued that Emerson's views on friendship are strange and radical while others feel that his logic is sound and valid. Many find that there is a critical connection between friendship and other earthly phenomena which Emerson shows through the use of metaphors to create the assimilation of tangible and intangible things in life. At the outset of Emerson’s Friendship Essay, he gives a description of how friendships begin. However, Emerson says it has nothing to do with putting a little effort. Friendships deal with attraction or affinity. Furthermore, Emerson asserts what …show more content…

He says that friendship is "an encounter of two, in a thought, in a feeling," . This however, is simply an image of friendship and perhaps just a simple admiration at a distance. Emerson continues to say that, "A new person is to me a great event and hinders me from sleep,". Here, he shows appreciation of the friend who brings him the best moments in life. However, the essay also shows Emerson's skepticism about his friend. He says that though he feels proud when his friend accomplishes something, he overestimates the conscience of his friend. This statement means that many may somewhat idolize their friends and they in turn also idolize each other which makes friends unable to read each other's reality and promise

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There are many valuable things in life, and one of the most significant is friendship. To live a life deprived of the experience of friendship is simply a life without living. Throughout our lives we are always meeting new people and forming relationships that may or, may not grow into anything more serious than a casual conversation. Throughout the novel, The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, friendships develop into a very serious form of brotherhood. Friendship, as well as “brotherhood” are essential parts of the novel.

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Throughout the piece, Emerson uses extensive metaphors, making comparisons to things that are important to the audience, which increases their understanding and engages them. To open the third paragraph, Emerson makes this comparison: “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that

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” I’ve learned that it is not what I have in my life but who I have in my life that counts. ”(http://www.searchquotes.com/quotation/I%27ve_learned_that%2C_it_is_not_what_I_have_in_my_life_but_who_I_have_in_my_life_that_counts./447970/) .What this quote means is that friends are someone that are worth more then anything else. In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men,he shows how the men in farms are always lonely. For example, Crooks did not have anyone.

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He is trying to get his audience to realize how vital self-reliance is in order to truly live your life. He tells his readers that “great works of art…teach [one] to abide by [their] spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else, to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what [they] have thought and felt all the time, and [they] shall be forced to take with shame [their] own opinion from another.” In short, Emerson is saying that if one does not listen to their own thoughts and express them, then their opinion seems unoriginal and “[taken] with shame [their] own opinion from another”. He wants his readers to take a stand and state their opinion, to not be afraid, to stand up for themselves.

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In the end he poses the question, “who is master and who is slave”. In “What It Means to be Connected” by Lucy Marcus, she is trying to write that it doesn't matter how many friends you have, rather it's about the connection you have with them. It's easy to find lots of friends, but

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