To begin I have to say that as much as I understood our last reading, this one gave me quite a bit of trouble. I still think I have missed some of Emerson’s major points and can’t wait to go over this work in class to help me gain a better understanding of it.
Throughout this work I believe Emerson is making the point that people should be individuals. To me, this relates to what we discussed in class about the Romanticists and their emphasis on the individual person in their writings. Emerson goes on to discuss youth and how adulthood takes away our individualism. He also seems to be entirely against conformity for conformity’s sake. It seems he is telling his readers to do what THEY think is right, and to not simply go along with the group or become complacent and consistent.
Emerson states in lines 82 and 83, “No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature.” I believe this sums up the entire theme of this work. People should follow their nature and resist the temptation to go along with the group. I connected this with Hawthorne’s work. It seems both authors are making major arguments about groups or mob mentalities.
As I read this work I began to relate it to several discussions I have had in my education classes this semester. I particularly enjoyed the part where Emerson examines how creative and individualistic children are. We have discussed in some of my classes, how today traditional education seems to take creativity away from children. Now students are afraid to be “wrong” and they do not strive to think differently or outside of the box. Throughout education we teach students to conform to set standards, and make decisions based on what society has deemed correct. This is in return siphoning any creative thought out of our society as a whole. I believe Emerson would agree with this statement, and urge us to work to allow children of all ages to maintain their innocence and creative nature, rather than stifle it with our own beliefs about what is “correct”.
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