Self Reliance Rhetorical Analysis Essay

American essayist, lecturer and poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay "Self-Reliance" he defines the self-sufficiency that every human should be capable of achieving and should follow. Back in 1841, the year in which Ralph published his essay, Mexico started their own civil war and there was the California gold rush but other which many people followed but other than that nothing exiting, or bad was happening just the usual day to day life routine which I believe that Ralph is describing. Emerson's purpose is to argue to the people from society about conformity, which the people should not be robots and follow the expectations of society. He adopts an encouraging tone to comfort the people to agree and to act against being a conformist. Emerson achieves his purpose through the use of syntax and figurative language such as similes. In the beginning of the essay, Ralph Waldo Emerson introduces with poetic verses. He starts of by using gloomy diction such as "suicide", "worse" and "ashamed". The use of these words would make any reader question about themselves, if they are conformist, the ones who follow the laws or rules of society. They help set a lyrical tone which it brings the audience to not be self-less, to not think constantly what others would do because a gloomy tone makes them feel a sense of dissatisfaction.

He wrote, "Man is his own star", "the eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray" and "every heart vibrates to that iron sting" to show how a man should be their own brightness to have confidence and to deeply think about their previous encounters with problems in society. With the use of hopeful objects such as hearts, stars and eyes which can be the essentials of an independent man it brings a pessimistic side.