The Transcendentalist

Yet, all these things make Chris an admirable person because he chose to follow in the footsteps of the people he looked up to regardless of what anyone else thought. Henry David Thoreau was a leader of the transcendentalist movement who encouraged people to abandon society and live in nature. Thoreau believed that in order to find true purpose, you needed to live in nature because nature held all the answers that mankind sought after. Part of living in nature meant…

Transcendentalism, a philosophy that emerged around the early 1800s, combines spirituality and intellectualism to better understand one's inner self. Pioneered by Henry David Thoreau and continued by Ralph Waldo Emerson, their influence has spread decades upon decades to inspire the individuals of several generations. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer focuses on Chris McCandless, a suburban kid who grew up in a well off household with an abusive and controlling father. There are several instances…

as, in “The Road Not Taken” where it is clearly defined that “Frost’s debt to Romanticism… is readily apparent” (“The Road Not Taken 4”). Lastly, Frost uses nature as a major theme in his poems; yet, he refrains from idealizing nature (like a transcendentalist would). However, he did write many poems about an inclination towards nature and solitude as evident in the poem “The Road Not Taken” in which he created “tension in the poem [during] the individual’s interaction with nature” (“The Road…

The Scarlet Letter was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850. Nathaniel Hawthorne was an anti-transcendentalist which is a person who thinks all humans are natural evil and sick. When Hawthorne wrote this story he based it off of a time period that took place in the 1600’s in a puritan society, that later starts to turn to an utopian society later on. In this particular puritan society, they were extremely strict when it came to morals and religion. The main characters were Hester, Dimmesdale,…

One of the main contributing factors to Chris’ odyssey into the wilderness, was the work of authors such as Jack London and Henry David Thoreau who wrote extensively about one’s connection with nature and valuing the simplicity in life. Chris became “enthralled by these tales, however, […] he seemed to forget they were works of fiction”(44). Jack London, the author he admired the most, “spent a single winter in the North” and died by his own hand in California (44). Though Chris read the works…

religious following of all laws, Thoreau wouldn’t allow his moral integrity to be tainted by following any unjust law. Civil Disobedience, as a result, regardless of consequence, is the only way to salvage one’s integrity and morals. Thoreau, a transcendentalist and staunch advocate against the evils of slavery, believed that people should be left to govern themselves without the injustices of power and money. His call for such a strong sense of individualism was well thought out, but a bit…

Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson were both highly influential writers in the 20th century. Dickinson portrayed the ideas of realism while Whitman portrayed the ideas of the transcendentalist movement. Whitman spent his youth in New York and became a teacher at the age of 17. He eventually quit his job as a teacher because he believed it absurd to force students to conform to the system of society. Dickinson’s life was quite different. She was an agoraphobic who spent the majority of her time in…

Born and raised in Massachusetts, author Nathaniel Hawthorne formulates The Scarlet Letter through the comfort and familiarity of his childhood home. Set in the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony in the seventeenth-century, Hawthorne unravels the themes of corruption and sin in humanity through the character of Hester Prynne, otherwise known as the town adulterer. After conceiving her daughter, Pearl, through a forbidden affair, society alienates Hester as she brawls to conquer her…

One’s character is generally understood as the reflection of how one acts and carries oneself. In terms of a credo, or one’s personal beliefs and values, living by one’s credo creates character. The ideal sources of one’s character are their life experiences, the people they surround themselves with, and their core values and beliefs. A myriad of life experiences are indispensable parts of one’s character. The actions taken, events witnessed, and knowledge gained through one’s life build a bank…

American Transcendentalism originated in the mid 19th century. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau were great impactors for the Transcendentalist movement. Thoreau and Emerson tried to send a message about the importance of being your own individual, but society today didn’t exactly catch on. Emerson states “...Envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide...Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist...Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind” (pg 362). With this…