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Concepts of personal identity
Concepts of personal identity
Concept of self and self identity
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The Individual essay
“Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one.” Those were just a few of the many wise words of Eleanor Roosevelt. Now some begin to wonder, maybe how can they be an individual. Although most consider this main question, How does a person find their place in society? Here’s a few examples to hopefully answer that question.
Song of myself is a poem written by Walt Whitman. He uses “I” quite frequently throughout the poem to connect you as a reader so he can share the feeling of self celebration. Just the first line shows he's proud of himself and shows where he stands in society as it says, “I celebrate myself, and sing myself.” He believes it's fine to do things on your own. He also explains how like grass is as a child, beautiful and pure. It can relate to us in our younger days. Embracing not only our lives, but accepting who we are can be a way to find your place in the world.
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What they fought for 1861-1865, written by James M.
Mcpherson was about a civil war. The Southerners could have just agreed with the North and that would have bypassed all the fighting and bloodshed. As for the North later in the war, they could have just left south alone and both live in peace. So why didn’t they? The answer is simple, they both had something to fight for. Countless soldiers wrote letters home, for example, this was written by a man from Missouri. “We fight for the blessings bought by the blood and treasure of our fathers.” They fought for what they believed was right. Makes them stand out in the society
standpoint. Durant 2 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. In this book the main character Huck was basically born to stand out of the crowd as well. He didn’t like living as a clean and civilised boy. Hasn’t only faked his death, but had a runaway slave named Jim with him. He expresses this when he says, “I feel so lonesome I almost wish I was dead.” They went against the world in many ways. Huck wasn’t a very school educated boy he was more streetwise. Huck created his own place in society since he didn't like how the world was around him. So as you can see these stories are all from different authors, but one of the main themes they all chose to stick to was being an individual, finding your place. There are many more stories with similar ideas that show how even you, can made a different path for yourself. Hopefully this helps answer those beginning questions. Referring back to the words of Eleanor Roosevelt, you not only have a right to be an individual, but it's encouraged that you do.
The book “For cause and comrades” written by James M McPherson is not one of your typical civil war books. This book is completely different than what everyone would expect, McPherson tries to explain the why of the war behind the scenes of it. He goes into great detail onto how dissects the initial reason of both sides North and South by concentrating not on battlefield tactics and leaders but what emotional and great experiences the men had to face in the battle field.
Whitman, Walt. "Song of Myself." The Norton Anthology of American Literature.. Gen. ed. Nina Baym. 8th ed. Vol. C. New York: Norton, 2012. 24-67. Print.
McPherson’s primary goal in writing this book is to hit three main points: “Initial motivation, sustaining motivation and combat motivation” . Initial motivation “consists of reasons why men enlisted” the next point deals with “factors that kept them in the army and kept the army in existence over time” ; the last point “focuses on what nerved them to face extreme danger in battle” . All of these points are related, to an extent. They all come together to form the foundation of why men fought in the Civil War. McPherson then goes onto finding support for his three points which builds up upon his foundation which in turn, creates this book.
Whitman, Walt. “Song of Myself.” 1855 ed. Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself.” Edwin Haviland Miller. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1989. 9-11.
Each author agreed that the battles were not the only reason for the fall and death of the Confederacy. While battles were being fought on the battlefields, the home fronts were had their own battles to fight. McPherson discusses what he calls as the “internal conflict” thesis, which blames the uneasiness among the southerners. The government was being blamed. Southerners were opposing conscription, taxes, and habeus corpus. McPherson points out that these could not have been reasons for the loss. The same thing was happening in the North. Therefore this internal conflict with the home front government does not have a plausible role in why the South lost the war. If the North was fighting the same type of opposition at home, then shouldn’t the war have ended in a stalemate? Also, the non-slaveholding whites and the slaves were feeling alienated. Rich slaveholders who wanted to keep slave labor alive were fighting the war. The two alienated groups were fighting a war on the wrong side. The non-slaveholders opposed sec...
Not all soldiers had a definite answer of why they fought, but it was definitely an open-ended question. In order to find a realistic answer to the question, McPherson gathered physical emotions from personal letters and diaries from soldiers during their war experience (1). The two sides, Confederate and Union, both had their reasons for going into war voluntarily and forcefully. He wanted to know what motivated volunteer soldiers to
In “What They Fought For”. James McPherson engages the reader with the general themes of what motivated the individual soldier to enter to fight in the Civil War. The book is divided into three chapters, giving the insight of many soldiers being divided by the border between the north and south. The lack of censorship at the time allows the reader to clearly see the insight of what these soldiers were trying to display. Although the soldiers are not equally represented by these few letters. There are still a lot of factors that could ultimately affected the overall believes of the soldiers. For example the opinion of the illiterate soldiers were not disclosed because they lacked the ability to write, the unskilled and farmers were also under
A literary catalog is considered a long list of events. One of the works that it is demonstrated in is “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman. Whitman writes over 52 sections within his poem, which clearly he mastered the technique. He informs the reader that it is time to celebrate himself which then he transmits different episodes of his experiences. The main concern is that his poem is universal in America and can encourage self-reliance.
Stanza 33 of “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman is a beautiful poem. In the poem, Whitman describes a multitude of examples of people he considers heroes.
The Heath Anthology of American Literature repeatedly refers to Walt Whitman and his poetry in terms of being American, yet as I read Song of Myself, my thoughts are continually drawn to the philosophies and religions of the Far East. Like the Tao Te Ching ideas are expressed in enigmatic verse and each stanza is a Zen koan waiting to be meditated on and puzzled out. Even Emerson called Whitman's poetry "a remarkable mixture of the Bhagvat Gita and the New York Herald" ("The Whitman Project"). Song of Myself contains multitudes of passages that express Hindu, Buddhist, and Taoist thought.
Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" is a vision of the American spirit, a vision of Whitman himself. It is his cry for democracy, giving each of us a voice through his poetry. Each of us has a voice and desires, and this is Whitman's representation of our voices, the voice of America. America, the great melting pot, was founded for freedom and democracy, and this poem is his way of re-instilling these lost American ideals. In this passage from "Song of Myself" Whitman speaks through his fellow man and speaks for his fellow man when his voice is not socially acceptable to be heard.
Since the beginning of time, people have been trying to become individuals and stand out as unique beings. During the foundation of the colonies, individuals were focused on preserving their religious beliefs. As slavery became more predominant, the Civil War era fought to give black people their identity back. In the 1800s and 1900s, the individual initiative shifted from giving a group of people identity to individuals fighting for their own personal beliefs. In today’s society, individualism has been diminished by the collapse of the economy, forcing people to live with their parents for longer periods of time. As the economy continues to grow again individualism is making strides in a positive direction.
In the midst of all this trouble, the South was not open to Northern efforts to save the Union. The South already had plans for the possible and eventual election of Abraham Lincoln. If (and when) he won, it would be their duty to secede, South Carolina’s governor told other southern governors. The South, where Lincoln did not win a single state, believed the President and Congress were now set against their beliefs, especially slavery. They barely gave Lincoln a chance to see what he would do as president. South Carolina
Book titles are supposed to give you some sort of insight into the book which you are about to read. In other words, the book must relate to the title. The book “Save Me From Myself” by Brian “Head” Welch is no exception to this. The book talks about how the former lead guitarist for the band “Korn” kicked drugs, and found God. One may beg the question though, how might the title of this book relate to it’s text? It’s really quite simple. Throughout the book, Brian Welch (lead guitarist of Korn) struggles with drugs, porn, and monetary addictions. He constantly promises himself that he will rid himself of his habits, but he never succeeds, on his own that is anyways. God eventually helped guide Brian into the light, and saved Brian from himself.
Explication Through a multitude of literary devices and techniques, Walt Whitman's poem, "Song of Myself," is one of his most famous contributions to American literature. He uses simile and metaphor, paradox, rhythm, and free verse style, to convey his struggle between the relation of the body and soul, the physical and the spiritual being. He continues to disobey all social restrictions of the romantic time period. From the beginning, Whitman begins by stating, "What I shall assume, you shall assume, for every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you," proposing that the reader listen to him, for he possesses all of the answers to life. The setting is somewhat naturalistic, and offers an image of the speaker, relaxing, possibly sprawled out across a blanket, philosophizing about life, while in the middle of a peaceful meadow. As the poem later shifts in tone, and setting, Whitman starts to think about the answers to life he has come up with, based upon the past, and decides that the reader should hear him out, one final time, as his ideas have changed. This brings us to #44 of "Song of Myself." In section #44 of, "Song of Myself," Whitman's first stanza begins: "It's time to explain myself…let us stand up. What is known I strip away…I launch all men and women forward with me into the unknown. The clock indicates the moment…but what does eternity indicate? Eternity lies in bottomless reservoirs…its buckets are rising forever and ever, they pour and they pour and they exhale away." Whitman is simply stating that he wants to tell the purpose of his madness. The madness that Whitman expresses is that of power and self-confidence. Whitman has written this based upon his experiences in life. Through these experiences, he has grown to know certain things about life and tries to pass them down to the reader. Throughout the beginning of the poem, Whitman takes the reader by the hand and demands that he follows Whitman and his ideas, because based on his own life Whitman holds the answers to the reader's questions. But now, he asks the reader to erase everything that he has previously said - forget the past. Why don't we try something new? We have to focus on the present, not on the past, but also to focus on what we are going to experience in the future, what can we expect?