Walden

From an early age, Hawthorne was regarded as a loner and a writer. This was originally his draw for the Brooks Farm community where he was first introduced to transcendentalism. Here he began to be influenced by the thoughts of others, and eventually even his own wife who was a transcendentalist herself. But what is transcendentalism, is it simply a belief, a practice, a religion, or a passage way to freedom? In truth, it is all of these combined. Transcendentalism is a escaped from the world…

a revolution starting in the early nineteenth century. Many of it’s written elements consist of values the author's, most famous Ralph Waldo Emerson, believed should be valued. In agreeance with Henry Thoreau’s idea of venturing nature, stated in Walden fifth chapter, Solitude, with my addition of animal bonding. Another value I personally believe is financial security; victims suffering from financial issues will be able to afford important assets. Like the transcendentalist, I want the world…

A student sits in an English classroom, listening to the teacher’s lecture about transcendentalism. The hands of the classroom clock seem to be barely moving. Despite the enthusiasm of the teacher and a few others, the student cannot relate to anything that is being taught. For example, after a class discussion of Emerson’s “Nature,” the student continues to feel apart from nature, finding it incompatible with a comfortable, modern lifestyle. Curious to understand how the presented ideas apply…

The American Dream is supposed to represent hard work and self-made independence. The ideal is blurred though when it becomes a selfish, endless pursuit of money, material, and pleasure. In modern society, success is measured by the accumulation and display of one’s wealth: the size of one’s house, the quality of one’s wardrobe, the luster of fine jewelry, or the model of one’s automobile. In the 1920’s, society mirrored today’s outlook on success. In Fitzgerald’s rendition of the American Dream…

novel, Montag separated himself from that society and embraced literature. This big turnaround in character began with that walk with Clarisse. Walking was a catalyst for Montag to begin to dig deeper and “suck the marrow out of life” (Thoreau in Walden) by enriching his life with literature. Had it not been for his walk, Montag would have continued to be miserable and not content with his…

Why reading “great” literature is valuable. Discuss all the reasons I gave in class and which reasons you find the most compelling. Take any 2 works you’ve read an explain how they are good examples of “great” literature. Great literature is a necessary part of being alive. We need literature because it is expression, without it we are just people who can’t express themselves and can hardly communicate. Literature humanizes us by telling us exactly what it means to be human. In CS Lewis’s words…

Our definitional model of consciousness states that consciousness cannot be explicitly measured, however is biologically rooted and dependent on the brain. Although consciousness is cognitive and internal, it is developed through social interactions with others as well as social reflections on those interactions. In this way consciousness is a social construction that is rooted in, and dependent on, cultural grounding and context (Lutz 1992, Sandstrom 2010). This ‘awareness of awareness’ is…

Outsider is when a person who is very isolated from others. In The Body of Christopher Creed by Plum-Ucci and the article “Kids Shuffle Lunch Seats” by Bock, outsiders are described as kids that are isolated at school, home and anywhere else. The author’s message about outsiders is that people who are outsiders needed to speak up when they do have a difficult time socializing with other people, this is proven in the book when Chris Creed had a lot of money, but lacked at using social skills and…

“Civil disobedience has an honorable history, and when the urgency and moral clarity cross a certain threshold, then I think that civil disobedience is quite understandable, and it has a role to play.” –Al Gore Applying civil disobedience has altered the very foundation of American democracy and shined as an example for peaceful protest in a way of respect and cordiality (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2014). Henry Thoreau was the most influential civil disobedient in the world’s history,…

In the collection of essays from walden by henry david thoreau had a lot of transcendentalist based statements some of which were based on the premise of nature and god. “Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads. . . .” (lines 155 from the pond in winter.) What Thoreau means literally by this is everywhere around him is perfect. But how this connects to nature and god is really just that heaven is this distant paradise but nature is also that paradise and it completely perfect. This…