Comparison Of American Values, Attitudes And Beliefs

How does American Literature reflect/reveal American Values, Attitudes, and Beliefs? Four writers in specific reveal to us these things in their writing. Those writers are Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo
Emerson, Walt Whitman, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. These people reveal American Values, Attitudes and Beliefs by showing us the we can be independent, we have to separate from technology every once once in a while, and we need to have moral relativism.
To begin with, David Henry Thoreau shows us that in order to see how beautiful the world around us truly is we must separate ourselves from technology. He did this at one point in his life. He spent three years in the Walden forest, only going back to society for minor supplies, such as
sugar. He lived mostly off the land by eating fruit and deriving intellectual stimulation from plants and animals in order to prove that a man can successfully live in the midst of nature. While he was in nature, nature itself became a reflection of his emotions. In his book, Walden, he describes Walden Pond as a mirror.
Throughout the novel, the weather continually reflects his emotional state. His period of melancholy and doubt occurs during the winter when the pond is frozen and nature is silenced, while his joy and exultation is reflected in the thawing of the lake and growth of new life in the spring. The idea of nature reflecting human emotions supports Thoreau’s belief in man as a part of, rather than separate from or above, nature. He also wrote an essay titled Moral Disobedience, in which he recounts in Walden the story of his imprisonment in jail for not paying taxes to a government that supports slavery. He also aids a fugitive slave in escaping to Canada. That is how David Henry Thoreau reveals to us American
Values, Attitudes, and Beliefs.
Secondly, Walt Whitman shows us that we can/need to be independent. In the first stanza of his poem, “Song of Myself”, Whitman says, “I CELEBRATE myself, And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at

my ease.... observing a spear of summer grass.” This shows that he is independent in the way he is and wishes us to be as well. In the seventh stanza Whitman states, “How is one supposed it lucky to be
born?
I hasten to inform him or her it is as lucky to die, and I know it. I pass death with the dying, and the birth with the new-washed babe.... and am not contained between my hat and boots, And peruse manifold objects, no two alike, and every one good, The earth good, and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good. I am not the earth nor an adjunct of an earth, I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and fathomless as myself: They do not know how immortal, but I know.”
This shows that Whitman, being the deep thinker he is, looking at the limits of life to see how much of an individual he can be, and compared himself to the other people around, who are all just as fathomless as he is. In the fifty-first stanza of “Song of Myself” he states, “The Past and the Present wilt.... I have filled them and emptied them, And proceed to fill my next fold of the future. Listener up there! Here you.... what have you to confide to me? Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening, Talk honestly, for no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer. Do I contradict myself? Very well than.... I contradict myself: I am large.... I contain multitudes. I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait
on the door-slab.
Who has done his day's work? Who will soonest be through with his supper? Who wishes to walk with me? Will you speak before I am gone? Will you prove already too late?” This shows that Whitman does not know his purpose so he asks a higher power to tell him what his purpose on this planet is. Showing that even the most individualistic person needs to slightly dependent on someone. This is how Walt Whitman reveals to us that we need to be independent.
Thirdly, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short stories show that people need Moral Relativism. The first example is when Dr.Heidegger invites three of her close friends to drink from the water brought to him from the fountain of youth, and they all go crazy with the power of youth. Thes+

e people have given up all moral standards and do whatever they can to get more of the water so they can revert to their youth for longer periods of time. The next example is when the girl is put near a poison plant by her father so that no guy could ever get close to her. So when a guy comes into her life and she notices that her can’t get close to her she kills herself. When that happens the guy kills her father, because he was so mad that he had thought to keep her around the poison plant for all of her
life.
After killing the man, he realizes that he has spent so much time around the girl that he is now poison.
This shows that he lost his moral relativity was lost when his love killed himself. The last example is when Aylmer notices Georgiana birthmark and asks her to get it removed. This shows that even though he loves Georgiana, he wants to make her more perfect, which throws his moral relativity out the window. That is how Nathaniel Hawthorne shows us that people need Moral Relativism.
To conclude, Thoreau, Whitman, and Hawthorne’s writing show American Values, Attitudes, and Beliefs, by showing to us that all we need is to be independent, have moral relativism, and separate ourselves from technology every once in a while to see how beautiful the world around us actually is.