Rhetorical Analysis Essay On Individualism

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“Individualism” Ralph Waldo Emerson describes his philosophy of individualism, explaining how “man” should rely on himself in order to reveal his uniqueness, so he says that “trust in thyself” and do not become a conformist are part of the steps of encouraging individualism. He refers to everybody, throughout the essay, as “man” and “mankind.” Emerson’s “Self Reliance” essay begins by quoting an epilogue to Beaumont and Fletcher’s: “Man is his own star” (Emerson 259). Declaring the importance of a man being authentic honest and confident; therefore, he continues through the paper promoting individualism. He talks about how important it is to believe and rely on man's own thought rather than accept other people’s ideas as man's own ideology. Then Emerson encourages his audience to recognize their own thoughts and not to be afraid of letting them out. He writes “a man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and has done his best,” (Emerson 260) and to support this he compares young men who are independent and bold, who would express themselves without fear; to a grown adult, who would start giving up his liberty and individuality to society.…show more content…
He also rejects some of the society morals and goes against doctrines from the church when he says “no law can be sacred to me but that of my nature” (Emerson 262). He says about consistency that it is this keeping us from trusting in ourselves, because we are scared of contradictions, of fighting for something we disagreed before but man should be consistent on the variety of actions honest he has been. However, he says that consistency is a big problem because it is this that keeps a man from breaking a pattern in which he lives. Men are also consistent on everything they do because of fear of making a mistake and as a consecutive being looked

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