Concord

CONTEXT- All-India Congress had just ratified the Quit India resolution, India was at a tipping point in terms of freedom from British imperialism, the time was optimal for mobilizing public opinion in favor of freedom. AUDIENCE-Gandhi’s speech, “Quit India”, given on August 1942 in Bombay was geared towards an Indian population, oppressed by British rule (Manas). Gandhi spoke to all social groups in India in this speech, however he selectively addressed the Muslims and Hindus. In fact, a…

Dead Poets Society and “Self-Reliance” are two incredibly comparable pieces that express the transcendentalist ideas which begin during the 1830-40s. They both contain a plethora of common beliefs, most notably, non-conformity, carpe diem, and self-exploration. Each of the pieces, “Self-Reliance” and Dead Poets Society, obtain multiple meaningful messages that allow the reader to learn important life lessons. Peter Weir, the director of Dead Poets Society, enforces the idea of individuality,…

When Charles Darwin proposed his theory of evolution, he noted that a species’ traits changed when they inhabited different environments. Similar to Darwin’s ideas, American values varied in accordance to one’s circumstances. In the early 1630s, a religious group known as the Puritans fled from England to escape persecution. Their leader, John Winthrop, delivered a sermon known as “A Model of Christian Charity” upon the arrival of their new home, America. It listed out future actions the…

Transcendentalism in the Modern World Transcendentalism is a philosophical and spiritually movement that protest against the general state and the intellectualism. Ralph Waldo Emerson an essayist, lecturer, and poet led the transcendentalist movement of the mid nineteenth-century. He wrote dozens of published essays. Emerson was one of the few people who believed and led transcendentalism. Henry David Thoreau an author, poet , philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development…

My mother flew into a raging fury. She threw books and knocked items off the desk in my room while screaming til her face turned red; meat cleaver in her right hand, left hand in a fist. “Nǐ xiǎng sǐ ma?” Do you want to die? My brother was in his bedroom, located one floor down. My father was in his bedroom, located a few doors down. What was Hell for me was silence for others. For them this was the usual occurance that played over day by day. I remember this memory like it was yesterday,…

Walk in Nature Thoreau once said,“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.” In my case, however, it was brief walk. I began by jumping off a deck, a metaphor for leaving society behind. Much like Thoreau did in his Walden Pond experiment. I then took a quick walk by the lake until I reached a fallen tree. I crossed it to get to the other side of the lake, and continued on. By the time I was done, I had sticks in my hair and dirt on my knees. There were not any other people,…

Self-reliance is the only road to true freedom, and being one 's own person is the ultimate goal. Transcendentalism is the idea that in order to learn about God and the universe, one must go beyond everyday experience to a higher standing. The five core beliefs of transcendentalists are non-conformity, self-reliance, free thought, confidence and importance of nature. The essays Self-reliance and Walden are examples of self-reliance. Self-reliance was written by Ralph Waldo Emerson and he urges…

Life with More Meaning Give up conformity and the idea of life, everyone can live without it. Transcendentalism is just that. Transcendentalism is believing that God, ourselves, and the universe are in a relation with nature. Two authors that represent transcendentalism are Ralph Emerson and Henry Thoreau. Ralph Emerson is known as the father of transcendentalism, and is a graduate of Harvard. His first real work is the essay titled Nature. He became a teacher but was kicked out of the school…

The Guide: Ralph Waldo Emerson This hell was constructed based on the views of transcendentalism. Emerson was the most well known transcendentalist as well as an author and poet. Along with this, Emerson was a close friend of Thoreau and was one of his few human contacts during Thoreau’s time at Walden pond. If anyone was to understand the mind of Thoreau and his life in Walden, it would be Ralph Waldo Emerson. 1. Non-Christians Developing a connection between man, nature, and God is the…

The reading for this week comes from William Cronon’s book Uncommon Ground. Throughout the passage, Cronon argues that our modern view of wilderness is paradoxically flawed, but due to the historical effects of the sublime and the frontier that emerged at the end of the 19th century, the adoration of wilderness has become ingrained in our culture. These ideologies have imprinted man-made moral values and cultural symbols on wilderness. Cronon asserts that this romanticism of nature currently…