“The Apology” by Ralph Waldo Emerson has a message of
knowing when to apologize for things, and that sometimes it’s all right to not
apologize for certain things, and it’s all right to be individual. He begins
the poem outright with “Think me not unkind and rude, / That I walk alone in
grove and glen;” where the narrator is almost apologizing before doing
something. Again, he asks for something like forgiveness in the beginning of
the third stanza, saying “Chide me not, laborious band…” Emerson’s beginning of
his second stanza with “Tax not my sloth that I / Fold my arms beside the
brook;” seem to have something to do with being individual and doing something
“nonconformist,” per se. Emily Dickinson’s “I’m Nobody! Who are you?” focuses
on the feeling of otherness and being on the outside. Dickinson proclaims “How
dreary – to be – Somebody!,” meaning it would be awfully boring to conform and
be a part of the crowd. Her blatant excitement to being a “Nobody!” illustrates
the message of individuality, similar to Emerson’s message of individuality.
Both poems stress the comfort and acceptability of being individual and
different. Dickinson’s poem focuses more on one’s whole being going against the
norm, while Emerson’s centers on the quirks and things one does that makes him
or her different. I connect with both because I believe it to be important to be individual and to not feel the pressure to conform.
Emerson doesn't want to be seen as a slacker. He asserts that there is value in the act of finding value in the natural world!
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