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Rhetorical Analysis Of Self-Reliance, By Ralph Waldo Emerson

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As chief founder of transcendentalism, Ralph Waldo Emerson inspires his audience in“Self-Reliance” to rely on themselves and be confident enough to become non-conformists. Transcendentalists live simple and individualistic lives and Emerson conveys the importance of this lifestyle through the need for social reforms in education, slavery, women’s rights, and Native American rights. Throughout the excerpt of “Self-Reliance”, Emerson explores the conflicts between society and individuals, rebukes the misconceptions of standing out, and emphasizes what civilization and society destroy in order to inspire change and self-reliance to occur. Society conflicts with the goals of individuals and harsh diction emphasizes the already negatively connotated …show more content…

Metaphorically, Emerson describes, “The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet. He is supported on crutches, but lacks so much support of muscle.” Due to the fact that this man has relied on society’s “crutches” and “coach”, he has lost the talents that once came naturally. Emerson employs metonymy through showing how frequently, change is not always for the better, and people need to learn that they cannot just accept something because society tells them to. People must figure issues out for themselves. He shows that people need to rely on themselves in order for this world to move forward and improve. Emerson builds the audience’s confidence in their own abilities in order to persuade them to lead social reforms and change society for the better. Throughout Emerson’s essay “Self-Reliance”, anaphora, metaphors, and various tropes and schemes are used to personify and exemplify the actions that need to occur so that the transcendentalist philosophy can come to fruition. Education, slavery, and rights for women and Native Americans are inspired to become a social norm and in order for that to occur, people need to rely on themselves. Self-reliance is an integral part of today’s society, reflecting the impact of Emerson’s transcendentalist

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According to Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place, Devine Province has found for you…” the means that self-reliance is the ability to trust yourself. In the novel Into the Wild, Chris shows this when “he intended to invent an utterly new life for himself.” Chris wanted

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“Outliers”, whereas in Emerson’s “Self-Reliance”, being an outlier means not conforming to society's norms. Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” and Gladwell’s “Outliers” tend to contrast quite heavily in as in Emerson’s “Self-Reliance”, self-reliance is key to achieving peace, whereas Gladwell seems to believe that you need to be successful to achieve peace and happiness, and success doesn’t happen on your own. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance”

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They will follow the steps of Emerson in “Self-Reliance”, Thoreau in “Civil Disobedience”, and the theme of the film Dead Poets Society. Within the writings of these authors there are both benefits and consequences of living self-reliant and “sucking the marrow out of life”. One of the main ideas for Transcendentalism is “Self-Reliance” a step by step writing by Ralph Emerson. Emerson explains having trust and confidence in yourself, he explains controlling your emotions and speaking your voice.

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In the texts “Declaration of Independence”, “Civil Disobedience”, and “Self Reliance”, the authors show that individuals shape the society, just as the society shapes the individuals. Individuals often stray away from society’s norms. In “Self Reliance”, Emerson writes about the primacy of the individual, and the importance of the individual, disregarding the expectations of society. He states, “What I must do is all that concerns

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Exercising your own ideals can be perceived as being rebellious in every society at time. People are expected to act, think, and behave in a way that safeguards everyone’s contentment. Ralph Waldo Emerson has a different view on this matter, in his essay Self-Reliance, he urges every individual to believe in their divine ideal and not to conform to society and its projections. In Emerson’s essay “Self-Reliance”, he urges for every human being to rely on their own intelligence and the genius within to make decision for themselves and to be their true selves.

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Many people rely on the opinions of others, never truly stopping to personally consider the subject at hand. Ralph Waldo Emerson, an impactful American writer, wrote a piece entitled Self- Reliance. In Self-Reliance, Emerson’s purpose is to promote ideas of individualistic thinking. Emerson uses strong, rhetorical strategies, such as figurative language, allusions, and complex syntax and parallelism to effectively persuade his audience to trust their own thoughts.

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In Self-Reliance, he talks about how people benefit from their hard work and enjoy it a lot more when they don’t accept help. Emerson is very straight forward with his opinion but does not try to blantely offend the audience like Thoreau does. He gives his audience an option to think about what he has said, rather than force it down their throats. Also, in Self-Reliance, he talks about how being different and misunderstood can be a good thing at times because many past geniuses were. Emerson gives examples to support his opinions and tries to convince the audience rather than trying to force the audience to see things from one viewpoint.

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Chris grew up in society having everything paid for by his parents. They paid for his college, offered to buy him a new car, and wanted to pay for his graduate school. Chris believed in the idea of transcendentalism, and that in order to have innate goodness one should not conform to society. Although Emerson did not go off and journey into the woods like Chris did, he still stayed true to his own ideas. In “Self Reliance,” Emerson “advocates for individuals to trust in their own instincts and ideas, rather than blindly following the opinions of society and its institutions.”

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As Ralph Waldo Emerson, a philosopher who helped lead the transcendental movement, said in his essay Self Reliance, ““...the highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plate, and Milton is, that they set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men but what they thought.” This quote embodies transcendentalism and describes the necessity to be your own person. Chris McCandless is an independent man whose ideology is based off of transcendentalism, but he takes it to an extreme degree to which he believes in. Most people who are tired of society would not take off and live in the wild, but Chris believed in his ideas and stuck to his gut. Another famous transcendentalist is Henry David Thoreau.

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The theme of the essay “Self Reliance” written by Emerson is for beings to not focus on those of others or subside his/her values to fit in with our society, for true geniuses comes from within and are made with their own heart and mind. His idea of self-reliance differs from that of the norm in that he doesn’t encourage those to mix into selfish ways but to be open and proud of their own individuality for that is the true key to life itself. Emerson’s idea is similar to the common use in that he encourages those to not depend on others to define his/her identity. 2. Emerson’s use of figurative language encourages his readers to view his ideas in a clearer and more emphasized perspective.

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In today’s society, self-reliance and non-conformity is an annotation on the tenets that people still value. Some people in today’s world have seemed to forgotten the ability to be content in isolation and individuality. Being true to oneself takes bravery and it compels one to be pensive and unbiased. Like Chris McCandless, he was pensive and unbiased without being thoughtless or impertinent to others. Chris McCandless was also self-reliant and did not conform, which led him to define himself of who he truly

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In the piece “Self Reliance” by Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of Americas most influential thinkers, Emerson talks about the subject of individuality. Using many different rhetorical strategies, he makes his perspective on the subject loud and clear by using personification, alliteration and analogy. “The eye was placed where one ray shall fall, that it might testify ray shall fall, that it might testify of that particular ray. Bravely let him speak the utmost syllable of his confession” (Emerson). Emerson uses personification, giving “the eye” the ability to talk and confess such as a human would.

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