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.
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.
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
In Emerson’s “Self Reliance,” he lived a privileged life in society, but believed you should not blindly follow society and conform to social norms. Emerson is described as a transcendentalist who “believed focusing on the purity and goodness of individualism and community with nature was vital for a strong society.” (“Self Reliance”) Emerson remained in society and encouraged his readers that in order to create a stronger society, members should focus on themselves and follow their own instincts. Chris, also known as Alex, followed these ideas in his own journey in “Into the Wild.”
Emerson is hoping that, by saying these things and using pathos that he can make his readers understand how lovely it is to be independent of others and the consequences of conforming. Self-Reliance¬ ¬is written with an abundance of metaphors and pathos to persuade his audience that they should not conform to society’s norms. “Society is a joint-stock company”, wanting what is best for a society as a whole and not their individual selves. Though
In the beginning of the movie Dead Poets Society, a new English teacher is introduced as Professor John Keating. During his classes, Mr. Keating is shown teaching Transcendentalist and Romanticist ways instead of the more normal way of teaching like the other teachers at Welton Academy practice. Examples of Keating’s different teaching styles include bringing his students outside for different poetry exercises, ripping out pages of their textbook, and influencing the concept of carpe diem, or seize the day. Keating’s way of teaching though, brings up the question of whether or not this brought more grief or more happiness on the students in the movie. Even with some of the terrible outcomes Mr. Keating’s teaching brought, the students of Welton Academy were brought more happiness than grief when acting out their Transcendental and Romantic beliefs.
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.
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.
He believed that optimism and self-confidence were key factors in living a successful life. One of his most famous aphorisms is quite well known, “To be great is to be misunderstood” (Emerson 366). This quote is very inspirational to many, meaning that a person who does great things is not always understood by those who cannot do those great things. Sometimes people judge others for being different than them, having different views or beliefs, and they do not realize that what the misunderstood person is doing is so much greater than they can comprehend. Many can say they agree with Emerson’s aphorism, because everyone wants to be great and misunderstood.
In Emerson's views, people should “not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail”(citation). Based on Emerson’s thoughts, people should not follow the crowd, but instead live their lives and leave their mark on the Earth. Emerson thoughts come from a philosophical movement of the nineteenth century called transcendentalism. Transcendentalism focuses on religious renewal, literary innovation, and social transformation (encyclopedia.com). Because of their belief that God exists in everyone and nature, and that knowledge comes from individual intuition, led to the highlight of individualism, self-reliance, and breaking free from traditions(citation).
The song “Brave,” by Sara Bareilles strongly relates to this quote by Emerson. Throughout this song there are many lyrics that go along with the Transcendentalism philosophy. For example, when Sara says, “You can be amazing… you can be the outcast… or you can start speaking up.” This relates back to Transcendentalism because they highly believe in being able to be yourself and not let other people bring you down. By being amazing, you need to speak what you believe and not care what society thinks.
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”).
Emerson emphasizes, “what I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think... It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion... but the great man is he who
Emerson implies that people need to be true to themselves and do what they want and what they think is right and not what society says. Emerson was going to seminary school and he was told that he had to follow certain rules and go to church every Sunday. However, did not feel like if he didn’t go to church every Sunday, that he would be any lesser of a person.
so forth throughout the beginning of the essay, Emerson tells the audience for them not to be afraid of speaking what they truly feel as where Emerson states “Speak your latent conviction and it shall be the universal sense; for always the inmost becomes the outmost” (269). Emerson wants these people to speak their minds and to not be afraid of what they feel about the changes in their society or whatever might be changing during their lives. A man who is not afraid to speak up will be a happy man, why? because they spoke what he or she spoke about what they felt towards their sentiments. Emerson feels that the people easily surrender to others with uniform or names who are highly known to society; as Emerson writes,“I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions” (271).
