Ralph Waldo Emerson's Essay 'Self-Reliance'

In Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay titled “Self-Reliance” he speaks on the topic of the individual, creating the idea that an individual being independent leads to greatness. Emerson’s writing within this memoir is relatable to young individuals who are looking for themselves, an individual must avoid conformity and false consistency while following their own thoughts making themselves an individual. Within the essay, Emerson uses a range of rhetorical devices to prove that every individual can do great by being an individual and not like everyone else, something that young people everywhere should hear while growing up with the heinous act of peer pressure.

Mark Edmondson’s article “Who Are You and What Are You Doing Here?” really inspired me. This article brought out a concept that most people ignore, the fact that schools must teach the required curriculum lessons, rather than teaching what the students want to learn, and what the teachers want to teach. The problem that students are more interesting in earning enough credits to receive their degree, more than they are about learning about a particular subject. How students would rather get a job with a high pay, than doing something they love. To say the less, he brings out the problems in society and how structured it is. Mark Edmondson’s article tells you to step outside the box and be more self-reliant, I couldn’t agree more.

In the essay Self Reliance, Emerson presents the idea of one being able to think independently (apart from society) and then choosing to compromise on those thoughts is suicide. Emerson presents this idea early on in his essay. He states, “envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that man must take himself for better or worse.” This quote describes how having envy or being jealous of someone does not further one’s knowledge and waste their time. It goes on to state that attempting to be someone else is essentially killing one’s own self in terms of personality. This is seen in its most basic form when one follows others blindly never to create their own paths in life. What will most likely lead to a true life lived would be to take one’s self for the bad traits and the good traits. Ultimately, if one decides to be themselves and go through life unphased by such an action as envying or following the masses blindly they can achieve great things on their own.

Self-Reliance is an essay that Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote to help guide his audience to rely on their independence. He wants to teach them that they need to be dependent on themselves. The method of Emerson’s writing worked well in the past and continues to do so in the future by using figurative language and emotion to appeal to the audience’s inner self and help guide them, however his style of writing could divert some.

Imagine a world where there is no society. Imagine if there was no technology and everybody just lived in isolation. In Emerson’s essay, “Self-Reliance,” he illustrates his ideas on the tenet by using metaphors. Nonconformity means being mentally and physically separated from society, a quality which sometimes overlaps with the ideas behind self-reliance. In “Where I Lived and What I Lived For,” Thoreau uses personal experiences, description, and problem-and-solution. Emerson and Thoreau begin by using different techniques, Thoreau using problem-and-solution and description, while Emerson uses cause-and-effect, yet both use cause-and-effect to develop the idea that one should be independent of society in the end.

Emerson's "transcendentalism" is essentially a romantic individualism, a philosophy of life for a new people who had overthrown their colonial governors and set about conquering a new continent, in hopes of establishing new and unique views. Though Emerson is not a traditional philosopher, the tendency of his thought is toward inward reflection in which soul and intuition, or inspiration, are fundamental. The new American needed less criticism and a rejuvenated sense of personal inspiration. Taking a practical and democratic, yet philosophic interest in all of nature and in individuals of every walk of life. Emerson stresses the potential for genius and creativity in all

I agree on Emerson's point of self reliance. I agree with this, because you can’t always rely on other people. Also, if you cannot rely on your own self, you will never be able to do anything alone.

I believe that, essentially, life consists of a series of choices. A grouping of these choices in one direction or another makes us who we are, and ultimately we have control over our lives. What makes one person different from another is his own set of choices. When going through life’s motions, we develop certain worldviews and ideas and values to live by. We develop an opinion of what makes a person “great.” In the well-known essay “Self-Reliance”, Ralph Waldo Emerson provides a beautiful way of approaching these choices, and he reveals a very inspiring set of values centralized around going through life answering only to yourself. I love the way Emerson evaluates the society we live

In the essay Self Reliance, Ralph Waldo Emerson addressed the topic of originality and uniqueness to depict the idea that these are the qualities that make people great. Emerson stated that “We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represent” in order to argue that each person has a uniqueness because their environments is unique (Emerson 2). The quote infers that every person in society has an ability to possess a unique idea. Every person has a unique idea, which means that every person can become a free thinker. Those who do not act on their thoughts and ideas due to societal rules lose the chance to become unique. Emerson believed that “Society is a wave. The wave moves onward, but the water of which it is composed does not”, meaning something sparks society to do something, everyone starts doing it but why they do it is lost over time (Emerson 20). The wave of society represents the masses and the water that makes up the wave are the individuals in society. Every person has an ability to possess a divine thought but cannot ferment it because of societal restraints (the wave). Due to the influence of society, one lacks the strength to act on their original thought and follows the crowd. Martin Luther acted on his original thought but thousands of people adopted his thoughts, even though the reasons for his regional thought are no longer present. Instead of creating and following their own ideas, they adopted Luther’s instead. In society, many people follow and imitate well established beliefs, thus leading to the lack of divine thought. In the reading, Emerson came to a conclusion that all people have divine thoughts but cannot act on them because of societal influences.

1. The main theme of the piece “Self-Reliance” is that one should never conform to the way that society views that they should because in doing that, a person loses their individuality. Emerson believed that a person should, “Speak [their] latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense,” meaning that if a person chooses to march to the beat of their own drum, then nobody can tell them their opinion is wrong because at least they are taking a chance and speaking their mind. Emerson’s definition of self-reliance is similar to the common use because both definitions discuss how one should take care of personal needs and be independent. Emerson himself stated that, “the great man is he who

In Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance,” Emerson calls for each person in society to be wholly true to themselves. He claims that it is most rewarding to the individual and the society for people to believe in one’s own thoughts and not in the thoughts of others. Emerson believes that conformity will ultimately lead to an individual’s demise because by living for others, people are not being true to themselves. Therefore in order to have a well-formed society, citizens should focus inward and have confidence in their own ideas before beginning to look towards other individuals; moreover, Emerson calls individuals not only in “Self-Reliance,” but also in numerous essays to act independently from conformity and to live for themselves.

It is simply not easy for a teenage kid to always stay true to himself/herself throughout their entire teenage life. A statistic found on lovetoknow.com shows that “70 percent of teens who smoke have friends who smoke or started smoking because of peer pressure” (Zeiger 1). Another fact from statisitcbrain.com shows that “90 Percent of 15-17 year old girls who want to change at least one aspect of their physical appearance” (Brain 1). Examples like these are the problems that 21st century teenage boys and girls deal with everyday. However, reading Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Self Reliance, might give them useful advice on how to live a better, more happy life. The compilation of short essays that Emerson composed inspire the readers to be nonconformist, and to rely on oneself to do the right thing. These ideas are what the Transcendentalists believed in. The group thought that everyone should move away from what society thinks, to listen to oneself, and to live life the way one wants to. However, today’s society completely contradicts Emerson’s writing. Most citizens, especially teenagers listen to how they are expected live life by society, instead of being who they truly are. Emerson says staying true to yourself and not imitating others will make an individual truly happy, which would help teens make better and smarter decisions when bad influence and temptation come their way.

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” was written in 1841 in New England during the Transcendentalist Movement, which was a revolt against the “Age of Reason” and the beginning of Romanticism. Emerson’s essay is about Transcendentalism, the belief that every human has his own way of thinking and personal inborn knowledge to build his opinion, independent from the common beliefs of the community and he should believe in and express his opinion to be successful. Emerson supports the idea of Transcendentalism by urging his readers to trust their own ideas, beliefs and common sense, to listen to and to trust their inner voice and to hold the popular opinion back from influencing their way of thinking, if they want to be successful. He tells

In Self-Reliance, Ralph Waldo Emerson claims that replicating someone else is pure suicide, because change is an inspiration that can be for the stableness of one’s well being while others may think it would be for the worse.

Emerson starts of the first pages of his enlightened essay with 3 epigraphs one in Latin that translates to “Do not seek outside yourself” and That is only one of Emerson’s suggestions you take to achieve self reliance. The next epigraph in Emerson’s first pages is a six-line stanza from “Beaumont and Fletcher's Honest Man's Fortune” and after that is one is a four-line stanza that seems to have been written by Emerson himself. All three epigraphs stress the necessity of relying on on your self for knowledge and guidance which is the main idea of basically the whole essay. Emerson talks about originality, self trust, character, society and conforming to it, nature, family, and religion. Now don’t be fooled I am not listing all of Emerson’s points in order I am simply explaining all he covers in his essay to further explain why or why they cannot work in 2017. Emerson begins his argument with individualism by talking about how you should form your own ideas instead of conforming to others ideas. "To believe that what is true in your private heart is true for all men — that is genius." Someone who doubts someone else’s individual opinion and chooses to conform his own opinion to what society has to say afraid if being criticized himself and he lacks the ability to even produce a thought of sufficient power and originality. So because the individual can not form his own opinion then he is a victim of society and he is handed down thoughts by others who have agreed on what is