Analysis Of Ralph Waldo Emerson's 'The American Scholar'

In “The American Scholar”, Ralph Waldo Emerson defines society as One Man, referencing a theory that “the the gods, in the beginning, divided Man into men, that he might be more helpful to himself; just as the hand was divided into fingers, the better to answer its end”. However, that system seems to have failed. Emerson makes a dire diagnosis, claiming that: “the state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and strut about so many walking monsters, — a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man”. Thus he advises the young intellectuals not to agree to the established order, to become “Man thinking” and not just “mere thinkers”. The man who does not conform to society has to become self-reliant

He encourages to create one’s own individual (American) culture that is not an imitation of the already existing systems—“Imitation is suicide”, he states boldly. He notices the importance of individual experience rather than gaining knowledge from the accounts of others. He notices that the followers of great philosophers are just plain thinkers, “bookworms” as he calls them in “The American Scholar”. He claims that: “he who is really of their class will not be called by their name, but will be his own man, and, in his turn, the founder of a sect”, which implies that great works of intellectuals are not meant to be simply read and agreed upon, but their goal is to inspire a man to further his own search and voicing his own opinions.
A self-reliant man should always stand in the opposition to society, for the “society never advances”, as Emerson assures the reader. However, the man evolves—he grow through gaining knowledge and making self-discovery. The most important for him is to get to know himself, his limitations, and to trust himself. “A man is relieved and gay when he

In “Walden” he presents his own accounts of cutting his ties to society—he moves to the wilderness, where he builds his hut on his own, and continues to live there for two years, as to check out Emerson’s notion of self-discovery through nature. Nature, through transcendentalists eyes, is seen as pristine, uncorrupted by society, so in order to realize the faults of civilization, the simplest way is to explore a world that has not fallen victim to its rules and institutions. Thoreau runs away from the society, from the people possessed by the need of proving themselves through expanding their material status, which disallowed them of enjoying the simple, fundamental things in life. He explains his decision, claiming that: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” Henry David Thoreau adapts the lifestyle of a Man Thinking, following his fellow transcendentalist’s