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While "Self-Reliance"
raises a range of themes and ideas we have consistently discussed
in this class (human agency, the relationship between God and
humanity, how we understand our experiences, binaries and other
intellectual crutches, etc.), Emerson should interest us as much
for his style as for his content. His style reflects his philosophical
ideas at the same time it articulates them. A focus on Emerson's
techniques will only enrich our understanding of his arguments.
A few primary tactics to look
for follow:
- Frequent employment of short,
aphoristic sentences that resonate with the reader and
throughout the essay. An example: "A man must consider
what a blindman's-bluff is the game of conformity" (paragraph
eleven).
- Metaphor: The previous
sentence offers a good example. Conformity is linked metaphorically
to blindman's bluff. This connects it to the v arious references
to visual imagery throughout the essay and takes the abstract
notion of conformity and describes it as a specific child's
game.
- Imagery: Emerson
frequently employs images and image patterns to make abstract
points more concrete or to underscore the tensions between
ideas in his essay. For example, the first paragraph challenges
us "to believe what is true in your private heart is
true for all men.." A few sentence later, Emerson describes
this private truth as "a gleam of light which flashes
across his mind from within" (paragraph 2). Paragraph
two then refers to eyes and rays--understood and perceived
internal truths connected to images of vision. When paragraph
11 brings us the blindman's bluff metaphor, Emerson now has
an image framework to play with. Vision = being true to one's
internal insights, while conformity = willingly blinding yourself.
- A dialectic between opposing
ideas (often resolved in a way that confirms Emerson 's
argument): Emerson loves to construct binaries and then argue
them through. Sometimes he chooses one side over the other
(after refuting and arguing against the side he rejects),
but often he creates a third option from the original binary.
Paragraph ten offers an example of this rhetorical move: "It
is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it
is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man
is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness
the independence of solitude." Sentences like this complicate
efforts to dismiss Emerson as solipsistic. In these lines,
he looks at two extremes--conforming with society's values
or separating yourself from society so that you may live your
values. From these two posited extremes, Emerson creates a
third alternative (an excluded middle) combining and reformulating
the two original propositions. In this case, he argues that
the great person maintains the integrity of solitude while
remaining engaged in broader society. In many ways, this sentence
sums up Emerson's ethical position. That important point aside,
this sentence also presents a typical rhetorical move in E's
bag of tricks.
Those four style points should
give you a useful starting point for your reading of Emerson and
our class discussion of the two essays.
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