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Pre-Reading Questions “from Self-Reliance” by Ralph Waldo Emerson

You will be reading this excerpt by Emerson. First, answer the questions about yourself, before you read what he has to say about these ideas.

1. What does self-reliance mean to you?

2. What is one incident where you felt you were especially self-reliant?

3. What are some advantages of being self-reliant? What are some disadvantages?

4. A “nonconformist” is a person whose behavior or views do not conform to the prevailing (popular or traditional) ideas or practices. Explain whether or not you consider yourself to be a nonconformist.

6. Who are some of the people who have influence on your behavior and decisions?

7. Is it easier to be a nonconformist when you’re alone or when you’re in a crowd? Why?

8. Who is one person whose judgment you trust?

9. Do you welcome the truth from others? Why or why not?

10. What does it mean to be misunderstood? Why might someone be misunderstood?

Active Reading: Summarizing Main Ideas

1. 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;

2. Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string…

3. Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution; the only wrong what is against it...

4. What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. 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…

5. For non-conformity the world whips you with its displeasure. And therefore a man must know how to estimate a sour face.

6. The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them…

7. Misunderstood! It Is it so bad then to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

Post Reading: After you have read the essay excerpt, answer the following questions.

1. According to Emerson, does society encourage:

A. conformity? Yes / No

B. following traditions Yes / No

C. independent thinking? Yes / No

D. sacrificing for the good of all Yes / No

E. following the beat of your own drummer? Yes / No

2. What is intuition? What does Emerson say about intuition in the essay?

3. What does Emerson mean when he says “Good and bad are names readily transferable to that or this”? Who “defines” good/bad?

4. What does he say about self-reliance in solitude and in a crowd?

5. What does he say causes us not to be self-reliant?

6. What does Emerson say we must do to achieve greatness?

7. Central ideas often interact in an essay. Write an effective summary of the essay that uses the three interacting central ideas of “intuition”, “self-reliance” and “nonconformity.” Underline the central ideas in your response.

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