...poems from Walden, “Nature”, and “Self-Reliance” all highlight key aspects of transcendentalism. In Walden, Henry David Thoreau moved to the woods by a pond to live simply and the way he wanted to with nature. In “Nature”, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was Thoreau’s friend, writes about how nature brings us back to who we really are. In the excerpt from “Self-Reliance”, Emerson writes about how the only person you can really trust or need is yourself in order to have a simple, happy life. Thoreau and Emerson both believed that in order to have a happy life, you need to live simply. In the excerpt from Walden called “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For.” Henry Thoreau writes that he “moved to the woods to live deliberately”. This means he willingly wanted to live in the woods to find himself in nature. He also wanted to “front only the essential facts of life, and see if...
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...Ashley Gibbons PSY-400:History and Systems of Psychology Final Paper January 22, 2015 The nature versus nurture debate has lasted for centuries because of the difficulty of separating genetic and environmental factors in human beings. Psychologists have been debating for years and years if genetics or your surroundings are more important in determining your personalities. It is truly fascinating to stop and ask your self some questions. What makes me shy or brave? What makes me smart and what makes me lack common sense? What makes me the way I am? Is it the way I was born and the genetics I have or is it because of the environment I grew up around and the behaviors I caught on to? Just thinking about all the questions you can stop and ask yourself about why you are the way you are can give you some idea as to why nature versus nurture is still such a big debate today. The coding in each of our cells determines the different traits that we are going to have, more dominantly like the eye color, hair color, ear size and height. “However, it is still not known weather the more abstract attributes like personality, intelligence, sexual orientation, likes and dislikes are gene coded in our DNA, too”(explorable.com). One of the hottest issues that people like to bring up today regarding looking at the nature theory is the gay issue. People like the say that there is an actual “gay gene” that exists and that gay people are born that way. Another issue that we face today would be the...
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...Concepts Images- Beautiful women, Concepts-of beaity will still be around Tintern abbey Comparison bw when he was young and now that is old He lost some things but also gained some things he is getting older and wiser Past to present to future Young and thoufghtkless youth when y9u are young you can enjoy nature withought thibnkibg abo9ut it too much Presence that disturbs me.. thoughts that transcend , a sense, sublime 110- when I am in nature I am closer to the essence that makes me human and when I come face to face with that understanding I am reminded of what really matters . from material things Speaks to young reader 114- If I didn’t think this way I would be lost You can live life depressed or hopeful Follow what I say in the poem Being around young ppl remind him of what he was like when he was young As you age you quickly forget what its like to be young You try to unlearn or forget what you were at that age that is why he likes to be with young people He wants to be able to hold on to what he was and remember what it is like because he relizes he is getting old 125- ppl are not born with happy moods, youre energy comes from nature if you fail to recognize that you suffer decay otherwise known as bad moods, unenthusiastic 132- All of life is either a tuned piano9 or an unturned piano He’s a realist and wants young to know bad stuff is coming. Don’t forget..he keeps saying this romanticist There are certain things you don’t want to forget...
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...Johnny Nguyen WR122-08 Dr. Celia Carlson 19 October 2015 Going Back to Our Innate Beauty Everyone has a memorable experience when they visit an art museum. Whether they are inspired or disappointed, they often leave with a good memory of at least one piece of art work. One memorable experience I had, was at the Portland Art Museum, in Downtown Portland, Oregon. The museum was presenting an exhibition, titled, “Seeing Nature,” from The Paul G. Allen Family Collection, which consisted of 39 landscape masterpieces. I went with two of my close friends. I remember sauntering through the hallways, getting lost in the somber landscapes by J.M.W. Turner, being enchanted by the colors in the iconic Monets, and being strangely moved by Georgia O’Keeffe’s fantastical flower paintings, all awhile sharing my thoughts amongst my dear friends. I saw that this experience was also shared amongst strangers and their families in the museum, and that is why human nature is fundamentally good, because we have the capacity to be profoundly affected by beauty. Most people among us, from theorists to philosophers to the commoner down the street, past and present, seek to finally answer that age-old question: is human nature fundamentally good or bad? Without this quest of examining and classifying our fundamental nature, we tend to become lost, and an unwanted sense of purposeless settles into our lives, putting a damp on our relationships and well-being. We seek to answer this question, because...
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...for something that Thesis: The characters in the novel The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, often come across many different conflicts. I think that the most brod conflict is person vs nature. This type of conflict is shown in the novel when, Johnny and Ponyboy rescue children from a burning church. : In the novel The Outsiders by, S. E. Hinton, she shows many different types of conflict. One of the major conflicts for me was Person Vs Nature. Identify Conflict, Explain who was...
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...What is the nature versus nurture controversy? In your opinion, is nature or nurture a more important determinant in human behavior? Why? Provide support for your answer. As we all know, nature is the biological genetics which individuals inherited from their parents, and nurture is known as the environment in which we're raised. The nature-nurture controversy is a classic research between behavioral psychologists in which they did find “the source of the creation of human personality” (Genes and behavior, “n.d.”), including physical and behavioral traits, and given out a question: “What is the main influence on human - their genetics or their environment?” (Nature vs. Nurture Examples. “n.d.”). It's commonly known that people have a few particular physical traits as their parents by sharing the same DNA. But where do people find their interest for other behaviors like the preference of reading specific kinds of book, or their natural abilities? That's what the nature versus nurture controversy tackles (What does "nature versus nurture" mean?, “n.d."). Some scientist claim that nature plays an important role in this issue. For example, in a theory of attachment, Bowlby shows us the “views the bond between mother and child as being an innate process that ensures survival” (“Bowlby, J., 1969”). In addition, Chomsky also claims that “language is gained through the use of an innate language acquisition device” (“Chomsky, N.,1965”). However, other scientists opposed that environmental...
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...Looking back on the history of humankind, there is an eminent pattern of atavistic and truculent behaviour in almost all people groups. From the earliest ages of the hunter-gatherer society to the pinnacle of modern civilisation, humans have possessed the same primal instincts to subdue and subjugate. Authors such as William Golding and Joseph Conrad have recognised this basic nature of humanity and portrayed it in their novels Lord of the Flies (Golding) and Heart of Darkness (Conrad). These novels exemplify the methods by which humans have placed checks upon their savage nature, checks which prove to be diaphanous when challenged by true hardships. In both of these stories, the authors attempt to demonstrate the savage nature of the human spirit by utilising symbolism and irony. Both Lord of the Flies and Heart of Darkness are intensely allegorical novels and emphasise the use of symbols. However, these symbols are not merely the characters, but also include their actions and the settings of the stories. For example, the characters of Kurtz and Jack are symbols for the ancestral instincts of humankind. Though they are two separate characters, they are both symbols for the same idea. They are contrasted with Marlow and Ralph, who are also separate apparitions of the same philosophy. Kurtz, the quintessential ivory hunter from Heart of Darkness, is consumed by the desire for ivory and allows his primal nature to dictate his actions. He even goes so far as to proclaim...
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...Of course, nature was supposedly one of the first things introduced to the world, so it makes sense that both the Iroquois and the Yoruba treat it with up-most respect. Nature proves itself to be a benign force in both civilizations’ myths, whether it be supporting, saving or creating life. The Iroquois put emphasis on the assistance of nature in “The World on the Turtle’s Back.” The god-like people of the Sky World dare not harm the Great Tree that sits in the middle of their city: “The tree was not supposed to be marked or mutilated” (Iroquois). The respect the Great Tree gets represents the respect nature as a whole should receive. Another benefit of nature in the Iroquois myth is the willingness of animals to help. When one of the characters...
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...Beginning in England, Thomas Cole started down his path. Learning some basic fundamentals before moving to America at the age of 17, and Cole knew what he wanted to do. After moving to America, Cole started teaching Art at his sister's school. After a couple of years, he moved to New York and started his career. He traveled to and from Europe on several occasions, and for different amounts of time. In 1832 upon his return to America he was asked to paint five paintings,these are known as The Course of the Empire. The first of these painting is The Savage State. The purpose of this first painting is to show the wildness of nature and the constant struggle mankind faces to rule over it. This particular landscape takes place in a valley surrounded by nature and the colors associated with life. The greens of various shades of different types of plants, and the blues for the lightening and darkening of the sky, and the browns for the animals and the dirt the plants grow from. The darker colors of the clouds would suggest that they are storm clouds, and the wildness of their layout would suggest that they would be about to break and rain down a potentially dangerous storm. I believe that this is to convey to observers that...
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...The Native American mythmakers weaved the traits and values they revered into the myths they wrote. Within every myth evaluated in this essay (Earth on Turtle's Back, When the Grizzlies Walked Upright, and The Navajo Origin Legend) the ideals the tribes held dear shine through. Each myth shows the human traits valued clearly and thoroughly. The qualities in nature selected to represent the traits of humanity the individual tribes valued paint an excellent picture of the ideals and great respect for nature held by them. The Earth on Turtle’s Back is perhaps the clearest in reflecting desirable human characteristics in nature. In the myth, a woman from the Skylands falls down to the expanse of water below. When she falls the animals in living in the water immediately go to her aid, flying her down gently and going deep underwater at the risk of their lives to bring some Earth up for her to live comfortably. None of the animals, regardless of how great, were able to bring the Earth up...
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...farmer, which could explain his need to write poems that involved nature, but he was not necessarily a good farmer. He was a better writer than anything else which caused him to have great acclaim in England, where he had moved to in 1912 with his family. He would return back when critics praised his work in the United States. Frost would also lose two children to suicide and mental illness. Frosts tendency to write about nature was related to the land of New England, which many thought “was the heart of America” (Norton). Nature was a notable part of Frost’s poems; however, he did not see nature as this supreme being, rather he saw nature as “no expression, nothing to express” (Norton). Cleanth Brooks, an influential...
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...Thoreau “Walking” From the essay “Walking”, Thoreau gives an explanation of the relationship between men and nature through his first sentence “absolute freedom and wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil”(Thoreau, 71). Throughout the essay “Walking”, the text involves much language and arguments that might be recognized as anti-civilization though today. Although Thoreau feels that men should live closer to nature in order to achieve a more fulfilled life, and stay away from the forces come from the past, society and today’s materialism, Thoreau neither fully rejected civilization nor completely embraced wildness. In “Walking,” Thoreau demonstrates his strong anti-civilization proclivities in his introduction of the essay “to...
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...for the existence of God and his nature. One of the five arguments he writes about is called the “First Cause” argument. It establishes that the universe is a casual series of events that are all traced back to a first cause. Aquinas’ logical argument for the existence of the traditional monotheistic God and that He is the first cause of the universe convinces me because of the unbreakable logic of the argument and the consistency with modern day knowledge of the beginning of the universe. Aquinas’ “first cause” argument is one of the many cosmological arguments that try to answer the question about the origins of the universe. The first premise of the argument is that some things or events are caused. Followed by the second premise, which says that some things cause themselves or some things are caused by something other than themselves. We know the third premise is, nothing can cause itself. So the conclusion of the first 3 premises is that if something is caused, then it is caused by something other than itself. Therefore, if something is caused by something other than itself, then a causal series or a series of cause and effect is established. Thus, we know cause precedes its effects. How do we know that nothing causes itself like the third premise states? Just from experience alone we know that there is no such thing as self-cause. In nature, we as humans have never observed something to cause itself nor will we if the laws of nature continue to stay in place. For example...
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...Restorative Power of Nature Throughout the entirety of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein, tensions between the natural and unnatural were the ultimate driving forces as the story unfolded. The overarching theme most apparently found throughout the novel is Nature and its relationship with man. Shelley juxtaposes the revitalizing power of Mother Nature with the dreadful portrayal of the man-made creation of the monster. This harsh juxtaposition drives the reader to consider the effects of crossing boundaries of the natural world. Romantic writers, like Mary Shelley, often depicted Nature as the most unadulterated and pronounced force in our world. Mary Shelley uses a great deal of natural imagery in Frankenstein, which is apparent even at the very beginning of the story. Early on, she establishes that Nature and all of its grandeur will play a major role throughout the entirety of the novel, “the pole is the seat of frost and desolation; it ever presents itself to my imagination as the region of beauty and delight. There, Margaret, the sun is forever visible; its broad disk just skirting the horizon, and diffusing a perpetual splendour” (Shelley, 5). While Shelley attempts to convey the profound power of Nature, she also contrasts this central theme with the characterization of Victor. Nature and its relationship with man is the leading cause, and resolution, for almost every conflict found in this novel. In regards to Romanticism’s notion that Nature is the epitome...
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...to survive in the Australian Outback. There was one scene that truly demonstrated this theme. In this scene the children find an oasis. They see animals eating the fruit from the tree as well as drinking the water in the small pond. They begin to relax and get comfortable. They stay the night there and by morning all the food and water is gone. Shortly after, they meet the aborigine boy and ask him for water. He then simply sticks a branch in the ground of were the pond was and gets water. This scene showed the children’s disconnect from nature because they had no idea what to do. As soon as the easy way of getting necessities was gone, they panicked. The children did not see the plethora of ways to obtain food and water. Because of the comforts of modern society, they did not have the skills or the mindset like the aborigine boy has. In modern society, we do not have to hunt for our own food, causing us to not be able to see food that nature has provided for us. In the beginning of the film the two children are shown swimming in a pool with ocean right behind...
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