Ralph Waldo Emerson Essay, Research Paper

Perfectionism, as defined in the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, is the “quality or state of being saintly and perfect as a freedom from fault or defect, as well as an exemplification of supreme excellence and an unsurpassable degree of accuracy. There are many times in a person’s life when they must gain perfection in order to be complete. Ralph Waldo Emerson explains his perfection of soul in his famous essay “Self-Reliance”.

Emerson was born in 1803 in Massachusetts. He graduated and became a minister. “Emerson left his pastorate because of doctrinal disputes with his superiors”.(www2.lucidcafe.com) He decided to take a year and a half off and travel to Europe. While in Europe, he learned many new things about his inner self, both strengths and weaknesses. Upon his return, Emerson stopped preaching for Christianity and began preaching for the people. Many people began to view him as either a radical or a conservative radical. This did not bother Emerson, as he was doing this for himself, to be a true perfectionist.

Emerson tries to believe in himself. For the only way to become a true perfectionist is to believe in your body, mind and soul, not someone else’s. Society is plagued by the same theme, meaning that many people tend to loose sight of their own ideas to grasp the ideas and beliefs that everybody else seems to have. Emerson tries to relay Gods message of individualism, not to conform to what the “people” believe, but what a single person believes. This is what I believe and how I interpret what Emerson is trying to prove, the meaning of a true perfectionist.

Throughout the essay, Emerson discusses ways to gain perfection. He, as well, understands that there are many obstacles that one must work through in order to gain the desired perfection. “In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty”. (176) Every obstacle can be turned into some type of good, which will aid in establishing perfection.

Emerson spoke about the envy of imitation. A question that I find, which through the interpretation of the essay, I believe Emerson may have asked, is how can someone be their own person striving for perfection, if they are copying someone else?

“There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at

the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide;

that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion;

that through the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing

corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of

ground which is given to him to till”. (176)

Someone may believe that imitation is the highest form of self-knowledge. This may be true for the person being imitated. Yet, it leaves the person imitating with no beliefs and customs of his own, only a reflection of someone else’s.

“To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men,-that is genius”.(175) To have perfection in the soul, one must have faith in their inner self and being. Emerson speaks of a relation of soul to the relation of power. Emerson is in value of the individual of self-soul. Yet a persons authority of soul can only reach to its highest potential. One can only gain the amount of perfection that they are capable of.

Emerson states, “What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think”.(180) This line is a major step in Emerson’s strive for perfection. Knowing that Emerson thinks about himself before others exhibits an enormous amount of self-idealism. In most circumstances, one should always think of themselves and then what may happen to the people around, weighing out the options after everything has been thoroughly thought through.

Emerson makes many insightful statements throughout “Self-Reliance”. With each of these statements, I began to look back at the smaller things in life and what they mean to me. “A great man is coming to eat at my house. I do not wish to please him; I wish that he should wish to please me”.(184) Why should I please someone when I am providing him with a dinner and a place to eat, he should try in at least one way to please me.

Some of the statements exhibit the obstacles that Emerson had to face as he moved closer to accomplishing his goal. Many may look at him as a role model. Everyone has some type of goal in their life and they should try their hardest to attain it. This is exactly what Emerson does.

Although I value the goal of perfection that Emerson is trying to accomplish, there are many things that he does that I question, both morally and ethically. At the beginning of his essay, I agreed with everything that was trying to prove and accomplish and I still do. Yet, the way he tries to gain perfection is what I am beginning to question. I find that Emerson is beginning to act self-fish, he wants everything for him and not have to satisfy anyone or anything else. He acts as if he knows everything; “This should be plain enough. Yet see what strong intellects dare not yet hear God himself unless he speak the phraseology of I know not what David, or Jeremiah, or Paul”.(189)

I do believe that Emerson accomplishes complete and total perfection. Yet, the perfection that he accomplished is unlike any perfection that I know. He was looking for himself to be perfect, while everyone else still had their few to many faults. He states that he is closer to attaining, as well as understanding, his goal (while still focusing on himself),

“When good is near you, when you have life in yourself, it is not

by any known or accustomed way; you shall not discern the

footprints of any other; you shall not see the face of man;

you shall not hear any name;- the way, the thought, the good

shall be wholly strange and new. It shall exclude example and

experience. You take the way from man, not to man.” (190)

This excerpt is somewhat abstract. I feel as if Emerson is telling the “people” what life is about and how to be perfect, without letting them experience the joys and sorrows that life does hold for them.

I find that Emerson believes he can try to be perfect in an imperfect world. One of his finishing remarks exhibits this. “Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. It undergoes continual changes; it is barbaric, it is civilized, it is Christianized, it is rich, it is scientific, but this change is not amelioration. For every thing that is given something is taken. Society acquires new arts and loses old instincts”.(199)

I find Emerson to be one of the most fascinating, influential and intellectual people that I know. Yet, this contradicts what he is trying to say. Look to yourself for the answers, not someone else. How can someone be influential and try to have people believe in themselves. Ralph Waldo Emerson perfects his soul through the knowledge and understanding of his own self-reliance.

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