Profundity stems from the word profound, which means having or indicating great wisdom or understanding (Google). Profundity is the moment in which deep thought turns into a realization or the gaining of knowledge via reflection. Though there are many ways to encounter profundity, a person may find themselves experiencing profoundity through deep thought, epiphanies, and the gaining of wisdom. The gaining of wisdom will also be referred to as accumulating knowledge and the gaining of knowledge. An individual may come across profoundness through deep thought. Inside the perimeters of one's mind, there are thousands, if not millions, of things you can think of. Take “The Pale Blue Dot” for instance. This video is significant because the narrator …show more content…
When an individual learns something new, they may apply this knowledge to past experiences and gain new insight into the situation they have faced or are facing currently. This idea is supported by the movie Big Fish, directed by Tim Burton. In this movie, we learn about a journalist, Will Bloom, who dislikes the seemingly false stories his father has told him all his life. Throughout this story, the audience watches and learns that Will Bloom just wants to know the facts and less of the fiction in the stories his father told. Towards the end of the movie, with assistance from his father's friend, Will Bloom realizes that his father likely embedded the truth within the stories he told. This realization is significant because it not only enables Will to move past his frustrations, but throughout this realization, Will has a moment of profundity inspired by the storytelling ways of his father. Due to the newly gained wisdom of his father’s friend, Will Bloom was able to reflect upon his father's actions, and due to this reflection, Will Bloom manages to immortalize his father through storytelling. Another example of profoundness caused by the gaining of knowledge is located in “Nature” by Ralph Waldo Emerson. To give context to this writing, Emerson had recently lost his wife and devoted himself to studying philosophy, religion, and literature, which is moderately displayed in this writing. The text is Emerson describing himself immersed in nature and feeling as though he is connected to the earth itself, stating, “I am nothing; I see all.” This is relevant because Emerson brings his audience to a feeling of profundity when they become aware that he is trying to emphasize the importance of nature through transcendentalism in his writing. The instant his audience understands his motive with this writing is
In Emerson’s article, Nature, the passage shows great value of how man and nature can be similar. The article shows in many ways how man can represent nature, and how nature can represent everything. Emerson’s Nature can be related to Guy Montag’s journey into nature in Fahrenheit 451, and the author’s ways of showing similarity between man and vegetable can be presented as showing how nature is mixed in with literature and humans.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “Nature.” The American Experience. Ed. Kate Kinsella. Boston, Massachusetts: Pearson Education, Inc., 2005. 388-390. Print.
The essay "Nature" by Ralph Waldo Emerson implements the use of many transcendentalist ideas through the use of strong rhetorical language. The core belief of transcendentalism is self-reliance and independence, and it stresses the importance that people need to do things on their own. Emerson uses irony to point out many latent truths about the concept. He also uses personification to show that the world around someone can have qualities of a human. Metaphors are also used heavily in the essay as catalysts to help the reader better understand Transcendentalism.
“Everyman, I will go with thee and by thy guide, in thy most need to go by thy side,” said Randolf Hayes while talking about Ralph Waldo Emerson. One of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s pieces of literature is The American Scholar. This connects to Jon Krakuaer’s novel, Into the Wild. All of these pieces connect because they all show transcendentalism.
Developed in the late 1820s, Transcendentalism was a philosophical, literary, and intellectual movement that emphasized the individual and living a simple life. It invited people to transcend knowledge that merely existed in reason and logic into knowledge that truly lies within imagination, freedom, intuition, and self-reliance. Interestingly enough, Transcendentalism itself was able to transcend time, as transcendentalist ideas still live in our culture in the works of the 20th century poets Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, and Wallace Stevens. This philosophy is not only communicated through literature itself, but it’s also manifested and celebrated in contemporary films such as “Cast Away” and “Pursuit of Happyness”. In this essay, we shall examine two of the most eminent tenets of this philosophy in “Cast Away”: stressing a closer relationship to nature as one, and celebrating emotions and imagination as another.
Throughout Daniel Wallace’s novel, Big Fish, Edward Bloom encompasses the meaning of the title. He is immortalized through the many tall tales he has shared with his son, Will. The stories are a depiction of a man who is larger than life, someone who is too big for a small town. Edwards passion for being remembered and loved followed him to his deathbed, where he passed on his stories to his son. The term “Big Fish” is used to reference the magnificence of Edwards life, and is an embodiment of the larger than life stories that he passes down to Will.
From the lone hiker on the Appalachian Trail to the environmental lobby groups in Washington D.C., nature evokes strong feelings in each and every one of us. We often struggle with and are ultimately shaped by our relationship with nature. The relationship we forge with nature reflects our fundamental beliefs about ourselves and the world around us. The works of timeless authors, including Henry David Thoreau and Annie Dillard, are centered around their relationship to nature.
Big Fish is a movie about a father with a seemingly vast imagination and a son who is very hesitant to believe a word his father says. Throughout the film, the viewers are exposed to how the two protagonists’ personalities clash. The movie is based on the father, Edward Bloom, and his “tale tales” that everyone except for his son, William, seem to believe. With the gradual realization that he only knows his father based on the stories he tells, Will becomes infuriated when his father makes his stories the subject of their lives. The fallout and eventual mending of a relationship between a father and son in the film Big Fish evaluates the line between fact and fiction with the correlation of time.
The Transcendentalist ideas that come from philosophers, artists, and religious thinkers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson play a role in shaping the way people think and behave in modern society. The novel Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer and the film based off of this book are about Chris McCandless's separation from his habitual life. This story demonstrates transcendental ideas and the impacts they have on both individuals and society as a whole. He pondered questions such as how world hunger exists and why people are so obsessed with material objects. Chris went from just graduating college, constantly surrounded by people to being completely alone in Alaska. He did not agree with the acquisitive society that we live in and he wanted an escape from his toxic family life.
After seeing the film, Dead Poets Society, the watcher will easily pick up on Transcendental idea’s whether they know it or not. If the viewer is watching this movie for educational purposes or entertainment, it overall demonstrates to the audience many strong ideas that these common writers emphasizes greatly throughout their writing through Mr. Keatings methods of teaching. Lesson’s of three common Transcendental writers, Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman are taught both directly and subtly by the influential teacher, Mr. Keating. The lessons taught not only impact the boys during the film, but it changes their mindset for the rest of their lives and the audiences. Keating was prosperous in establishing the theories of the writers inside the boys minds which impacted all aspects of their lives for the better.
Stories are our essence of life. They grow and change with us. They allow us to reconstruct the pas, and put our slant on things. They don’t’ have make sense, and they don’t all have to be fact. That’s what kind of story this is.
In Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Nature”, he develops his own perspective on the interconnection between humans and nature. As an admirable essayist and transcendentalist, he believed that man can have the ability to go and find the Truth in solitude and nature, and can return to reason and faith. “You cannot see the mountain near.” When one is near a mountain, it looks enormous; however, you can see it in its entirety from a far distance. There is no need to even perceive it as a challenge, especially if instead we focus on one rock at a time; loving and appreciating the journey. Having the right perspective towards things can help form a healthy reality. He believed nature could positively change people’s outlooks in life. In Emerson’s view, “Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.” In other words, he is saying that however someone feels is how they will view nature. From his experiences, he believes if a man becomes part of nature once again, loses his egotism and becomes a lover of beauty, then he has become a “transparent eyeball.” Having experience as Emerson did with nature can make one’s perspective more valuable and precious in this
In Walden, Henry David Thoreau explains how a relationship with nature reveals aspects of the true self that remain hidden by the distractions of society and technology. To Thoreau, the burdens of nineteenth century existence, the cycles of exhausting work to obtain property, force society to exist as if it were "slumbering." Therefore, Thoreau urges his readers to seek a spiritual awakening. Through his rhetoric,Thoreau alludes to a "rebirth" of the self and a reconnection to the natural world. The text becomes a landscape and the images become objects, appealing to our pathos, or emotions, our ethos, or character, and our logos, or logical reasoning, because we experience his awakening. Thoreau grounds his spirituality in the physical realities of nature, and allows us to experience our own awakening through his metaphorical interpretations. As we observe Thoreau¹s awakening, he covertly leads us to our own enlightenment.
Nature is an essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson where he discusses the symbolism that exists in nature, its manifestations, and the ongoing development of nature toward higher forms. According to Emerson, nature itself can be considered as an experience of solitude (“man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society”). It is his belief that when the individual desires to be alone, he shall look into the immensity of the sky, as it inspires a feeling of awe and respect. To Emerson everything in nature is a source of wisdom, simplicity, and fulfillment (“flowers, the animals, the mountains, reflected the wisdom of his best hour”). He further believes on the importance of the relationship between man and nature. This relationship between
... emotion, nature, and imagination which he used as effective tools in an exploration of humanity and memory, in hopes to reveal the true temperament of the human individual, or the search for the definitive nature, man, and so goes the quest of the romantics, and their focus on the individual; and thus “Nature will not stop writing” (Bloom 131).