Individuality is a very general idea about a certain lifestyle. While it can be perceived in many different ways, both Ralph Waldo Emerson and Washington Irving accurately describe it through different viewpoints in their works, titled “Self Reliance,” and “Rip Van Winkle,” respectively. This concept applies to all human lives, as everyone has internal debates on whether they are on the side of blending into society, and therefore not contributing to it, or pulling themselves out of society too much. While many people try to find different compromises between being an individual and being part of society, both of these works demonstrate the values and importance of both pulling yourself out of organized society and including yourself in groups
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Rip’s only problem was a negative form of individuality: laziness in his relationships with people. Rip has “an insuperable aversion to all kinds of profitable labor” (2), so he has such an obsession with his individual self, that he gives nothing to his family. This type of individualism is just selfish and counterproductive, which causes his wife to constantly nag him to work, and help the family. This nagging and fighting between Rip and his wife leaves Rip feeling awful, therefore demonstrating the need to balance time between one’s self and …show more content…
Rip is called a “simple, good-natured man” (2), and is loved and respected by the community, as “not a dog would bark at him throughout the neighborhood” (2). Rip is respected and praised in this community due to his distinct sense of individualism. While he keeps to himself, a positive example of his communal efforts is seen when the narrators says: “He would never refuse to assist a neighbor even in the roughest toil.” The narrator even sympathizes him with, almost as though he is too good of a person to blame when he says: "Poor Rip was at last reduced almost to despair; and his only alternative, to escape from the labor of the farm and clamor of his wife” (4). Rip is eventually rewarded for this laziness by being granted freedom from his nagging wife towards the end of the narrative, signifying that while constantly being criticized for his laziness in the beginning, his good-natured self trumped any
Rip’s only problem was a negative form of individuality: laziness in his relationships with people. Rip has “an insuperable aversion to all kinds of profitable labor” (2), so he has such an obsession with his individual self, that he gives nothing to his family. This type of individualism is just selfish and counterproductive, which causes his wife to constantly nag him to work, and help the family. This nagging and fighting between Rip and his wife leaves Rip feeling awful, therefore demonstrating the need to balance time between one’s self and …show more content…
Rip is called a “simple, good-natured man” (2), and is loved and respected by the community, as “not a dog would bark at him throughout the neighborhood” (2). Rip is respected and praised in this community due to his distinct sense of individualism. While he keeps to himself, a positive example of his communal efforts is seen when the narrators says: “He would never refuse to assist a neighbor even in the roughest toil.” The narrator even sympathizes him with, almost as though he is too good of a person to blame when he says: "Poor Rip was at last reduced almost to despair; and his only alternative, to escape from the labor of the farm and clamor of his wife” (4). Rip is eventually rewarded for this laziness by being granted freedom from his nagging wife towards the end of the narrative, signifying that while constantly being criticized for his laziness in the beginning, his good-natured self trumped any