David Henry Hwang

In Walden by Henry David Thoreau, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Beloved by Toni Morrison, the authors describe cruel and flawed aspects of society as system and human nature in individuals within a society. As a punishment for adultery, Hester Prynne, the main character in The Scarlet Letter, is required to wear a scarlet letter “A” on her chest and stand on the scaffold in the town center every day to endure public shaming. During his stay at Walden Pond, Thoreau escapes the rigidity

Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist. He is best known for his works that relate to the transcendentalist movement during the mid-19th Century. Emerson is the writer of a well-known essay titled “Self-Reliance”. This essay revolves around the idea that individuals should be nonconformists, or people who do not conform to the typical standards of society. A specific quote in this essay is, “to be great is to be misunderstood”. Although it’s a short quote, many large ideas can be extracted

Civil disobedience is a topic that starts many arguments, is a widely debated matter by many, and can be used in a multitude of different ways. The act of civil disobedience can be noted in major works such as Sophocles’ Antigone and Dr King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail. Sophocles’ Antigone shows the inner struggle of a young woman who is dealing with a difficult situation between moral and spiritual obligation and a kingly decree. Martin Luther King Jr. is writing in response to a letter from

ties into Freedom & Selfhood and is important to the development of today’s society and the future ahead. It allowed people to begin to look at the world through a different lens, a lens that showed them to embrace freedom and to find yourself. Henry David Thoreau uses imagery, similes, and metaphors to develop the theme. The way in which Thoreau describes the scenery allows the reader to become immersed in the world that he has described. Specifically, he uses scenery to combine the idea of living

“This world is but a canvas for our imagination.” This quote from Henry Thoreau, writer of Walden, is just a glimpse in the possibility of what we can do with our lives. In the Dead Poets Society, many of the students exert certain traits of transcendentalism. Transcendentalism is the progressive ideology that divinity fuses into nature and humanity, and that to progress we need this moral divinity inside ourselves and to find that purity. Dead Poets Society demonstrates Nonconformity, Spark of Divinity

As Henry David Thoreau stated, every man must “make known what kind of government would command his respect.” But what happens when voices aren’t enough? What happens in the cases of those who speak up, over and over again, only to be entirely disregarded? The

With over five million women, men and children united in all seven continents, the Women’s March was by far the largest and most peaceful protest in history. Washington, Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Sydney and Paris are only a few out of the many cities world-wide that all groups of ages, genders, races and religions merged together on January 21st, 2017 to send a clear message to the brand-new government of the United States. Accumulating no arrest, the protesters conveyed that all rights are

The Americans Dream’s inaccessibility has lead many individuals to turn towards nature to salvage a meaningful life from the disappointments of a superficial, mainstream society. Today’s America promotes a society that values dependence and conformity above one’s own aspirations, but it has not always been this way. In the beginning, the American Dream was encompassed in a larger idea of one's’ personal freedoms. Now, contemporary society at its core is the act of being pulled into these mainstream

History's pages has been turned to a whole different chapter because of a sensational speech from a highly intellectual guy. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had done it again, but only was his speech on August 28, 1963 so eye opening that it really turned heads of all citizens in America. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech was so inspiring to us Negroes, that even myself, who before was a black, southern,and poor young girl with no hope, had finally found a little spark of faith. As Dr. King approached

Music is art. An art that expertly plays on the emotions of people through rhythm, beats, and silence. Music moves each person in different, extraordinary ways, making it a crucial aspect of today’s pop culture, conveying ideas that may normally be repressed. The most meaningful melodies are more often than not, found within film. A common idea of many of these compositions is transcendentalism. More specifically, the ideas that came from the transcendentalist philosophical movement that developed