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The Man Who Saw It All Analysis

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‘The Man Who Saw It All’ “Disobedience is the foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.” These quotes make people think and pull up the deepest thoughts that are hidden in our hearts and thoughts. These quotes are from Henry David Thoreau. He was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, leading transcendentalist, tax resister, surveyor, and a historian who is remembered for his philosophical and naturalistic writings. July 12, 1817, in Concord, Massachusetts, Henry David Thoreau was born into a New England family. Thoreau was an outstanding student in school which eventually led him to study at Harvard College from 1833 to 1837. After graduating, he agonized over what to do next. Ultimately, he joined the faculty of the Concord Public School for a short time and opened a grammar school in Concord in 1838 called Concord Academy with his brother …show more content…

Emerson was a writer and fellow Concord resident. Through Emerson, Thoreau became exposed to transcendentalism, a philosophy asserting the existence of an ideal spiritual reality that transcends the empirical and scientific and is knowable through intuition (American). Not only did Emerson introduce transcendentalism to Thoreau but helped by advising him and introducing him to a group of local writers and thinkers who were the transcendental movement’s leading figures like Bronson Alcott and Margaret Fuller. Emerson was like a mentor to Thoreau and supported him in many ways. He encouraged Thoreau to start writing literary works and helped Thoreau to publish his first work ‘Aulus Persius Flaccus’ in The Dial in 1840. The Dial was a famous transcendentalist magazine that was published intermittently from 1840 to 1929 by the members of the Hedge Club. Thoreau became a philosopher of nature and its relation to the human condition. Emerson’s influence led Thoreau to follow transcendentalism in his early years as a

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After reading Krakauer’s Into the Wild and Henry David Thoreau’s exerts from Walden, we can see a deep connection between Christopher McCandless and Thoreau’s transcendental beliefs. Both Chris McCandless and Thoreau show transcendentalism in their actions of self-wisdom, differences, and liberation. Chris McCandless life choices in Into the wild reflect the transcendental beliefs of Thoreau’s Walden. The first transcendental belief of McCandless is that he marches to the beat of a different drummer.

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Jon Krakauer, Chris McCandless, and Henry David Thoreau reveal the philosophy of Transcendentalism. After reading Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer and Henry David Thoreau’s excerpts from Walden, readers see that Transcendentalism plays an important role in Chris McCandless’s and Henry Thoreau’s lives. Chris McCandless and Henry Thoreau have similar beliefs in Transcendentalism. Both men adopt deliberation, individualism, and self-wisdom. Chris McCandless adopts deliberation as a way of life.

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During the Transcendentalist movement, Henry David Thoreau was a leading transcendentalist whose work focused mainly on nature and adventure. Walden, or Life in the Woods is an exceptional example of a story based on adventure. In Thoreau’s account of his life at Walden pond, he first states, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” Through this quote Thoreau explains that he was tired of the complexity of normal life and desired to go on an adventure to live simply. Additionally, Thoreau states, “I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life…,” which again reveals his motivation for new life by adventure and simplicity.

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The authors main point is that when you are in nature it blocks out any outside influence and allows you to think for yourself. Being alone for Emerson allowed for him to feel different and be at one with his surroundings. Thoreau’s short story, “Civil Disobedience” and Emerson’s short story “Nature” are examples of Transcendentalism because they include intuition, non conformity, spiritual well being, and individualism.

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Resistance to Civil Government (Civil Disobedience) is a dissertation written by American abolitionist, author and philosopher Henry David Thoreau published by Elizabeth Peabody in the Aesthetic Papers in 1849. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was born and lived almost his life in Concord, Massachusetts. After finishing public and private school in Concord he attended the prestige Harvard University. He excelled at Harvard despite leaving school for several months due to health and financial setbacks. Mr. Thoreau graduated in the top half of his class in 1837.

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Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau are two well known transcendentalist authors who significantly

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Ralph Waldo Emerson is raised on a pedestal in thinking about the transcendentalist movement. There is no need to look farther than his writing to understand. Emerson’s use of rhetorical terms throughout his works touch and move the reader in just the way he wants, as such in his piece “Self Reliance.” Emerson’s brief anecdote instils a sense of individuality when he praises Washington Allston for the original content that he has created. Emerson talks about the verses he read the other day and his reflection of the value they hold and why.

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Living out with nature, being confident in oneself, not conforming to what societies wants, and being able to rely on yourself and speak your thoughts is somewhat of a dream for many people. Although it may be a dream for many people, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau were able to live that dream and capture it in their writings. They lived life as transcendentalist. In choosing to do so, they began to adapt different traits of who and what transcendentalist were. Transcendentalist think intuitively and reflect on everything around them.

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Henry David Thoreau especially supported the interaction between man and nature. With his experiment at Walden, he addresses a modern concept known as minimalism, focusing on the way one must supply for himself with his basic necessities. His intentions were not to isolate himself, but moreso to separate himself from a life dependent upon others. Through his actions, he is able to criticise society and many of their needs.

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Consequently, what Thoreau proposed was simplicity rejecting modern civilization to return to nature and let the individual to develop his/her highest possibilities. Thoreau not only made a critique of the modern society as Emerson did, but also he practiced his ideology: he experienced that life is better without crowd, luxuries and complexity. The transcendentalist poet spent two year close to nature. He lived at Walden Pond where he wrote entire journals recounting his experience. Thoreau is well known for his book “Walden” (1854).

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The Nuremberg Code has no legitimate power behind it, and it would be wrong even to acknowledge it as the system on which every future code have been based. Considering that it was set up by lawful luminaries presences of that time, it has all the earmarks of being a poor ad lib finished the 1931 Guidelines on human experimentation. It has gotten significantly more consideration than it at any point merited, presumably in light of the fact that it was made in a pivotal period and that it was created by Americans. Likewise, Ethics is a regularly advancing subject, and rehashed modification of moral codes is confirmation of enhancing human ethics and qualities (Ghooi, 2011).

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Henry David Thoreau is one of the primary promoters of the transcendentalist movement and has been inspiring people to take on the transcendentalist lifestyle ever since the mid 1800’s. Mccandless was an admirer of Henry’s philosophy but he wasn’t as fully immersed in his work and ideals as Thoreau was to his own. His intentions were not as closely aligned to the movement as Thoreau’s and the difference between these icons are clearly visible. Self reliance is one of the most significant components of the transcendentalism movement that Henry David Thoreau contributed to in his literary career. “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” - (taken from Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden”).

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In Civil Disobedience, Thoreau questions, “must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think we should be men first, and subjects afterward”, indicating that man should take more focus on standing up for what is right instead of conforming to what the majority is thinking or what people are being told to think by the government (Thoreau). Thoreau explains that every man has a conscience for a reason, all men are able to generate an opinion on what is right and what is wrong and that men should in a sense “man up” and fight instead of backing down to become slaves to the legislative government. Thoreau gives an example of his non-conformity in Civil Disobedience when he writes about how he stood up against the government by withholding money to pay his taxes.

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What Thoreau means by the Civil Disobedience is that every person should be govern more by his own moral compass that gives him much clearer answer to his deeds, rather than some laws of a government. “Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think we should be men first, and subjects afterward.” (1)

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In Transcendentalist thought the self centers itself in reality; every object external produces of the self that takes its reality from our inner selves. Self-reliance thus refers to the way the natural world and humankind rely on oneself to exist. Thoreau supports the transcendentalist ideal of living simply throughout his essay, Walden. The ideals of transcendentalism refer to the thought of living simply by omitting all of the unnecessary items that are not essential to our survival.

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