The Transcendentalist

The big question everyone has argued for so long is "What precisely was Chris McCandless?", from the book “Into the wild”. Many argue Chris was a "nutcase" or a "sociopath", wile others call him "a hero" or “a true transcendentalist", in his travels. I, however, say Chris was a lost, ignorant young man who was just looking for more in life and wanted to find it out for himself by going on his own Odyssey. Chris McCandless shows much of his ignorance in multiple incidences of his travels by…

together. Dreams are essential to living life. Some only live because their dreams are what keep them moving. Even when conscious, they are what lead everyone to a different place, and that is why they are so important. Henry David Thoreau, a transcendentalist, also believes that people should follow a path that was created…

“Give me a wildness whose glance no civilization can endure…” Henry David Thoreau (page 400). When Thoreau was a child he rarely followed directions. He was independent and strong-willed. Thoreau went to Harvard. After college Thoreau got a teaching job. Due to corporal punishment he had to quit. Henry opened his own school in Concord with his brother. The school was successful but because John, Henry’s brother, became ill they had to close the school (page 377). Thoreau often uses the word…

Writers such as Walt Whitman and Ralph Waldo Emerson both emphasized nature in their late transcendentalist writing, influenced by romanticism and in reaction to rationalism. In Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself, he declares his love for nature. Nature contains patterns which fit like a puzzle. Other authors have used these patterns as the foundation for…

essence of how a truly human life. Contrary to the larger ethos of Jacksonian Democracy, individualism and uniqueness were seen as valuable and to be encouraged. Always something rare now and days. More, repudiating the Industrial Revolution, transcendentalists reveled in their relationship with the natural, and sometimes supernatural, world. Henry David Thoreau, an acknowledged homosexual in an era when no one would consider that acceptable, went so far as to live out his ideals and is often…

Ryan O’Neill Kuglen-2 Honors English 11 25 November 2014 Romantics and Transcendentalists The new ideas from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries changed the way that people viewed nature and how people chose to express themselves. American Romanticism and/or Transcendentalism are often shown in many of Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories and poems and in Herman Melville’s Typee. American Romanticism was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement of the eighteenth and nineteenth…

The romantic time period was when writers focused on the beauty of nature. Author Henry David Thoreau, a transcendentalist writer during the romanticism time period appreciated nature and one's feelings. In Thoreau’s essay “Walden” and “Civil Disobedience” he represents many different transcendentalism tenets throughout his works. Henry David Thoreau had a very simple view on life, after he graduated college, Harvard University, Thoreau had got a job that would be able to provide him with…

Nontraditional religious views, which were quite scandalous in Dickinson’s day, are not quite as uncommon now. Thank God. The South is known for its staunch religious views. Nicknamed “The Bible Belt,” our devoted Christianity is no secret; which is why I have no clue why my family lives here. Don’t get me wrong, I love it here. I love living just a couple of hours away from the beach, I love Southern cooking, and I adore the heat and humidity, just to name a few things. My parents both grew…

Sometimes when i feel angry, upset, or maybe just want to think, ill go outside to enjoy and respect nature. Having respect for nature is a Transcendentalism trait. Transcendentalism is a movement to be a nonconformist who does things different than everyone else and also has respect for nature. In Dead Poets Society the teacher Mr. Keating teaches the student to be Transcendentalism. The students then go on and create their own Dead Poets Society group outside of class. One of the student in…

What makes up the American Dream? A home, a job, a family, modern comforts, and leisure time. And is it achievable? Although some people believe the American Dream to be unachievable, it is possible to live the American Dream. A key to achieving the American Dream is receiving aid from friends and mentors. In The Last Lecture, Randy Pausch talks about what he did and what he learned throughout his life. Randy applied to Carnegie Mellon and wasn’t accepted, but his professor, Andy van Dam,…