Throughout history there has been a constant, man’s desire to experience new things. Two men that come to mind are Chris McCandless and Henry David Thoreau. Both men shared a similar reason for traveling into the wild. The differences in their journey’s that led to McCandless’s death and Thoreau’s success is the preparation and approach to the journey’s. Even though Chris failed on his journey he still was very much like Thoreau wanting to leave society in search for enlightenment.
The person in this poem expressed his sadness coming north by using folk art with black speech and compared the south with the north. These poems expressed racial pride and folk
“The Oregon Trail,” written by Francis Parkman is a description of the experiences traveling into the unknown depths of the American west in 1846. The story is told from the first person point of view of Parkman, a scholar from Boston who embarks on the great expedition of traveling into the west in hopes of studying the lives of the Native Americans. His journey is also one of the first detailed descriptions of the beauty and the bounty of a largely uninhabited North American territory. But one of the most critical elements of the story was Parkman’s encounters and recruitment of members to his band of travelers who ultimately play a major role in the success of the western journey.
During westward expansion, land has played a key role in the existence of humans. It has been the individual thirst for power and expansion that causes humans to feel the need to gain land. Even in medieval times, one could not be considered nobel unless one had acquired land. In addition to seeing land as a powerful entity and a symbol of strength, it is also seen as necessary for the preservation of human existence. Infact, Andrew jackson in his address to congress on the Indian Removal Act, John.
America’s love for the wilderness has always been closely tied with personal values. Beyond just a love of nature, many would say the wild holds endless fascination due to the emotions it inspires and the values we connect to it, rather than just a fondness for greenery. Cronon’s “The Trouble with Wilderness” is one exploration of how wild was a culturally created ideal and the effect that it had on America. A more personal example exists in Krakauer’s Into the Wild, as Chris McCandless’s journey into the Alaskan brush was no doubt motivated by these ideas on wilderness, and the promise of personal fulfillment. There is a reason why we define wilderness as we do, and it is a view that not only affects our actions, but also how we interpret
Namely, the poem concerns the speaker and his neighbor, debating whether or not to eliminate the fence separating their land. Notably, the speaker desires to eradicate the barrier, and attempts to convince his neighbor that doing so would benefit multiple parties. He then provides examples of specific perspectives that would influence the neighbor directly. For example, the cows on the neighbor’s property could roam liberally if the physical restraint was removed. The apples on the speaker’s side could feed his neighbor, and even his neighbor’s cows if the property was combined.
Christopher McCandless, whose life and journey are the main ideas of the novel “Into the Wild”, was about an adolescent who, upon graduating from Emory College, decided to journey off into the Alaskan wilderness. He had given away his savings of $25,000 and changed his name to Alex Supertramp. His voyage to Alaska took him two years during which he traveled all across the country doing anomalous jobs and making friends. He inevitably made it to Alaska were he entered the wilderness with little more than a few books, a sleeping bag and a ten pound bag of rice. A couple months after his first day in the wild, his body was found in an abandoned bus.
In Paper Towns, by John Green, various aspects of Margo’s life coincides with similar themes of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself.” First, Margo’s life has always had a need for spontaneity. “I tramp a perpetual journey,” (verse 46) Margo highlights this line in Whitman’s poem. Throughout her high school years, she had run away numerous times, waiting for someone to find her.
Did you know the wheel ruts from the Oregon Trail wagons are still visible today? Many look at that fact and think,”Why should I care?”. That is understandable, but after this essay, everyone will have a deeper understanding of the sufferings of those on the Oregon Trail. The Oregon Trail was the main path of travel during the Westward Expansion. Around five hundred thousand people went on it, and their calamities still be sensed.
In the last episode of season five, “Gliding Over All” Whitman makes another appearance. The title of the episode is referencing Whitman’s poem in Leaves of Grass. This represents change. The science high school teacher becomes the emperor of meth. He gains control over his life even though ironically, he is dying.
In the first stanza’s, the narrator’s voice and perspective is more collective and unreliable, as in “they told me”, but nonetheless the references to the “sea’s edge” and “sea-wet shell” remain constant. Later on the poem, this voice matures, as the “cadence of the trees” and the “quick of autumn grasses” symbolize the continuum of life and death, highlighting to the reader the inevitable cycle of time. The relationship that Harwood has between the landscape and her memories allows for her to delve deeper into her own life and access these thoughts, describing the singular moments of human activity and our cultural values that imbue themselves into landscapes. In the poem’s final stanza, the link back to the narrator lying “secure in her father’s arms” similar to the initial memory gives the poem a similar cyclical structure, as Harwood in her moment of death finds comfort in these memories of nature. The water motif reemerges in the poem’s final lines, as “peace of this day will shine/like light on the face of the waters.”
The earth is a valuable place that should be kept safe by those who live in it. Joseph Bruchac in “The Sky Tree” and Barry Lopez in “Coyote Finishes His Work” are both Native American literatures that demonstrate the importance of earth. In the “Sky Tree” a sick man asked his wife Aataentic to cut down a tree because he believed that the fruit that grew from the tree would heal him. When the tree was cut it fell through a hole; eventually, the tree grows in a new earth. In “Coyote finishes his Work” Coyote the main character teaches the Indians how to survive.
Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman emphasize the importance of living true to yourself and developing complete self-acceptance. To live true to yourself and completely accept who you are, you must understand your identity and your sense of self. In Self-Reliance, Emerson explains that your identity and your sense of self is spiritual. Whitman argues, in Song of Myself, that your identity and sense of self is based on both your soul and your body. While both Emerson and Whitman allow for intimate connections and friendships, Emerson encourages people to have relationships with a select few, whereas Whitman encourages people to connect with everyone and anyone, due to their different views of self.
It is common for a person to admire the stars in the sky. Their brightness and arrangement is a fascinating sight, of course. On the other hand, people tend to forget or plainly ignore what is right under their feet. In “Song of Myself,” Walt Whitman focused on what he thought was truly important, details of the green grass. Whitman wrote, “I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars” (663).
In Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself’, one can appreciate the poem properly by understanding the poem’s voice, imagery, figures of speech, symbols, word choice, and theme. To understand it though requires a great deal of thought to arrive to the meaning behind the writing. Especially since this poem was written in the nineteenth century and is written in a very loose structure and free verse. Firstly, the speaker of the poem is an individual, Walt Whitman himself, as seen by the repetition of “I” in the poem.
