The boss of the farm implies when he first meets them: " Well, I never seen one guy take so much trouble for another guy. ... He declared, "The great man is who in the midist of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.... The word solitude means the state of being or living alone in the dictionary, but these great peoples are not physically living by themselves in Emerson's case. ... After two hundreds year since Emerson published the Self Reliance document, the westerners fully understand his encouragements and put the ideas into practice. While Jo...

• Word Count: 1341
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Almost one hundred and fifty years since it was first published, Herman Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener"" remains one of the most elusive short stories in all of American literature. ... Perhaps to understand the story one must first accept that there is no single meaning to the character of Bartleby. ... Why did Melville create this inscrutable character? ... Bartleby functions in the story not as a character but as a symbol. ... The lawyer himself reacts with growing horror and confusion as the seriousness of the problem becomes clear, especially when considering Bartleby's to...

• Word Count: 2093
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

One of the most influential pieces of literature that Ralph Waldo Emerson composed is Nature. ... As a self-reliant individual in 1845, Thoreau decided to conduct an experiment on Emerson's land at Walden Pond by building himself a cabin and living in simplicity and seclusion for two years (Baym 963). ... He encourages his readers to deviate from the magnetic field of society constraining them, and instead to pursue simplistic solitude and communion with nature. ... Because he had not paid a poll-tax in six years in protest of slavery and the Mexican War, Thoreau was imprisoned for one ni...

• Word Count: 1963
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

The author Doris Lessing, uses the protagonist's extra sensitivity and perception as a handicap in a society organized as ours is; one that favors conformity, the average, the obedient, however restricting his character, personality and actual self, therefore creating the conflict between achieving the standards and normalities determined by society or maintaining the individuality of one's true self while deviating from the expected; ultimately calling to question personality itself. ... "Hovering over these brisk waves, a couple of hundred yards away, was a shining disk we felt ...

• Word Count: 3249
• Approx Pages: 13
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

" The Hungry Tide is set in the Sundarbans, an archipelago of hundreds of scattered islands, some densely populated while others completely uninhabited, at the mohona of several rivers in the Bay of Bengal. ... For hundreds of years, only the truly dispossessed braved the man-eating tigers, snakes and the crocodiles who rule these fragmented islands. ... The narrative space is taken up by them and a handful of other characters, each on a personal quest through life. ... Kanai's narrative brings to life the character of his uncle, Nirmal Bose, who is dead before the story begins. ...

• Word Count: 3979
• Approx Pages: 16
• Grade Level: Undergraduate