You Can Go Your Own Way free essay sample

An analysis of the nature of Emersons feelings on democracy. This paper deals with Ralph Emersons attitudes and principals concerning democracy and how one mans actions can affect society as a whole. Touched-on points include how Emersons version of virtue could have given us a perfect societyor so he thought. At first, Ralph Waldo Emersons essay Self-Reliance seems to be a rather outspoken reiteration of Shakespeares oft-quoted line from Hamlet: This above all: To thine own self be true. Emerson calls for everyone to stop obeying the conventions of society simply for the sake of obeying the conventions of society, and for everyone to instead take whatever actions their hearts deem appropriate and necessary. It would follow that such an essay would end up being nothing more than a call for complete social anarchy, but this does not turn out to be the case; in fact, Emerson argues strongly in favor of democracy, but democracy a bit different than what we usually think of today. We will write a custom essay sample on You Can Go Your Own Way or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page