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The Night Thoreau Spent In Jail

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By definition of Merriam Webster's online dictionary, the word integrity means honest and fair
("integrity"), and the word sacred is defined as being highly valued and important, or worthy of religious worship ("sacred"). In Ralph Waldo Emerson's maxim "Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind" (Emerson), by the definition of sacred and integrity, he states that nothing is more important than the honesty of one's own mind or thoughts. Emerson is trying to to say that a person should views one's own true thoughts as something very important and special. From this maxim, a person can conclude that unfortunately often times people don't always believe that their own thoughts are as important as others, and Emerson is trying to tell people that …show more content…

Lee's play, The night Thoreau Spent In Jail, the main character Henry shows his belief in Emerson's maxim throughout the whole play and his life. A reader can see in
Henry's characteristics that he sees the importance of everyone's personal thoughts and ideas, but
Emerson's maxim is clearly expressed in Act one where Henry is being confronted by Sam about his non-paid taxes. Sam mentions that he does not actually like his job, but that feels someone has to do it.
Henry responds by saying "Then quit. If you don't like bein' constable, Sam, then resign" (Lawrence and
Lee 59). Henry lives Emerson's maxim by showing that he respects what Sam thinks about his job, and tries to encourage him to quit so that Sam may live out Emerson's maxim as well and respect have Sam value his own thoughts.
Many situations like this happened in Lois Lowery's novel The Giver. The novel is set in a world where there is a Utopian society that is ruled by the government, and every decision and action is controlled by the government. In the novel, the protagonist Jonas has the honor of accepting the job as the receiver; he is able to hold the past memories before the utopian society was created. With

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