How Did Ralph Waldo Emerson Contribute To Individualism

Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Self-Reliance” Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of America’s most significant thinkers and writers, in what is believed to be his most important and influential expression of America’s spirit “Self-Reliance” talks about the importance and significance of individualism and being yourself. Throughout his writing, Emerson uses many rhetorical devices, interesting sentence structures and hortatory tone in order to successfully explain the importance of being yourself. Emerson’s work often times stands out due to his interesting way of writing, and even in the first paragraph, Emerson is quick to grab the attention of his audience by using a periodic sentence and a dash with which he states his claim, “To believe your own thought, to believe what is true for you in your private heart, is true for all men − that is genius” (Emerson 1). To put into other words, Emerson’s unique sentence structures in his writing really serve as effective and important tools. With the use of these unique structures and rhetorical devices, Emerson is able to really emphasize and highlight his main thought – the importance of being yourself. This interesting way of writing is only one of the many tricks that Emerson used that helped him create such memorable and respected documents. Emerson did not stop his creativity with the use of only unique sentence structures, in fact, it was through his use of rhetorical

All of these tools that Emerson used were very effective and made him successfully deliver his message that individualism and being true to yourself is something sacred and cannot be replaced or forgotten by the conformity of this world. Today Emerson is believed to be the most influential thinker in America and when analyzing his writing it becomes evident as to why that