Emerson Essay Self Reliance Text

Published first in 1841 in essays and then in the 1847 revised edition of essays. Throughout his life, emerson kept detailed journals of his thoughts and actions, and he returned to them as a source for many of his essays. Such is the case with self reliance, which includes materials from journal entries dating as far back as 1832.

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In addition to his journals, emerson drew on various lectures he delivered between 1836 and 1839. The first edition of the essay bore three epigraphs: a latin line, meaning do not seek outside yourself a six line stanza from beaumont and fletcher's honest man's fortune and a four line stanza that emerson himself wrote. Emerson dropped his stanza from the revised edition of the essay, but modern editors have since restored it. All three epigraphs stress the necessity of relying on oneself for knowledge and guidance.

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The essay has three major divisions: the importance of self reliance paragraphs 1 17 , self reliance and the individual paragraphs 18 32 , and self reliance and society paragraphs 33 50. As a whole, it promotes self reliance as an ideal, even a virtue, and contrasts it with various modes of dependence or conformity. Because the essay does not have internally marked divisions delineating its three major sections, readers should number each paragraph in pencil as this discussion will make reference to them. Emerson begins his major work on individualism by asserting the importance of thinking for oneself rather than meekly accepting other people's ideas. As in almost all of his work, he promotes individual experience over the knowledge gained from books: to believe that what is true in your private heart is true for all men that is genius. The person who scorns personal intuition and, instead, chooses to rely on others' opinions lacks the creative power necessary for robust, bold individualism.

This absence of conviction results not in different ideas, as this person expects, but in the acceptance of the same ideas now secondhand thoughts that this person initially intuited. The lesson emerson would have us learn? trust thyself, a motto that ties together this first section of the essay. A person with self esteem, on the other hand, exhibits originality and is childlike unspoiled by selfish needs yet mature. It is to this adventure of self trust that emerson invites us: we are to be guides and adventurers, destined to participate in an act of creation modeled on the classical myth of bringing order out of chaos. Although we might question his characterizing the self esteemed individual as childlike, emerson maintains that children provide models of self reliant behavior because they are too young to be cynical, hesitant, or hypocritical.

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He draws an analogy between boys and the idealized individual: both are masters of self reliance because they apply their own standards to all they see, and because their loyalties cannot be coerced. This rebellious individualism contrasts with the attitude of cautious adults, who, because they are overly concerned with reputation, approval, and the opinion of others, are always hesitant or unsure consequently, adults have great difficulty acting spontaneously or genuinely. Emerson now focuses his attention on the importance of an individual's resisting pressure to conform to external norms, including those of society, which conspires to defeat self reliance in its members. The process of so called maturing becomes a process of conforming that emerson challenges. In the paragraph that begins with the characteristic aphorism whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist, he asserts a radical, even extreme, position on the matter.

Responding to the objection that devotedly following one's inner voice is wrong because the intuition may be evil, he writes, no law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. The only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. In other words, it is better to be true to an evil nature than to behave correctly because of society's demands or conventions.

For example, he claims that an abolitionist should worry more about his or her own family and community at home than about black folk a thousand miles off, and he chides people who give money to the poor. He refuses to support morality through donations to organizations rather than directly to individuals. The concrete act of charity, in other words, is real and superior to abstract or theoretical morality. In a subdued, even gentle voice, emerson states that it is better to live truly and obscurely than to have one's goodness extolled in public. The important thing is to act independently: what i must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. The great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. Note that emerson contrasts the individual to society the crowd but does not advocate the individual's physically withdrawing from other people.

Outlining his reasons for objecting to conformity, emerson asserts that acquiescing to public opinion wastes a person's life. Even worse, the time spent maintaining allegiances to communities of opinion saps the energy needed in the vital act of creation the most important activity in our lives and distracts us from making any unique contribution to society. Conformity corrupts with a falseness that pervades our lives and our every action: . Finally, followers of public opinion are recognized as hypocrites even by the awkwardness and falsity of their facial expressions.

Shifting the discussion to how the ideal individual is treated, emerson notes two enemies of the independent thinker: society's disapproval or scorn, and the individual's own sense of consistency. Consistency becomes a major theme in the discussion as he shows how it restrains independence and growth. Although the scorn of the cultivated classes is unpleasant, it is, according to emerson, relatively easy to ignore because it tends to be polite.

However, the outrage of the masses is another matter only the unusually independent person can stand firmly against the rancor of the whole of society. The urge to remain consistent with past actions and beliefs inhibits the full expression of an individual's nature. The metaphor of a corpse as the receptacle of memory is a shocking but apt image of the individual who is afraid of contradiction. Memory, emerson asks why people hold onto old beliefs or positions merely because they have taken these positions in the past.

Being obsessed with whether or not you remain constant in your beliefs needlessly drains energy as does conformity from the act of living. After all, becoming mature involves the evolution of ideas, which is the wellspring of creativity. It is most important to review constantly and to reevaluate past decisions and opinions, and, if necessary, to escape from old ideas by admitting that they are faulty, just as the biblical joseph fled from a seducer by leaving his coat in her hands, an image particularly potent in characterizing the pressure to conform as both seductive and degrading. Noteworthy in this discussion on consistency is the famous phrase a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.