Essay Revision Suggestions

Title:

You Can’t Get to Heaven in a Datsun B210, but You Can Take the Bus: 
“Alex” McCandless’s Road to Transcendence

Thesis:

Mingled with ideas gleaned from Transcendentalist readings, McCandless’s chosen lifestyle took on aspects of the convictions of Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, and others. Self-reliance, natural living, and transcendence of human experience are elements of Transcendentalism that seem to have inspired the adventures of Chris McCandless.

Topic Sentences:

In his Backgrounds of American Literary Thought, Rod W. Horton reports that, “The transcendentalists . . . encouraged individualism and self-reliance” (117), and asserts their “insistence on the essential worth and dignity of the individual” (127).

Along with a need for self-reliance, McCandless sought rugged individualism as an antidote to what his biographer describes as “the stifling world of his parents and peers, a world of abstraction and security and material excess, a world in which he felt grievously cut off from the raw throb of existence” (22).

The surest way to conquer conformity, believed Alex and the Transcendentalists, is immersion in the wilderness -- living as close to nature as possible.

This love of nature climaxes with transcendence of ordinary human experience.

Thesis:

Separating from other writers, the Transcendental authors Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman ushered in a new era of thinking, which revolutionized the way some people perceived themselves in the world. Each author was rebellious for their time period, daring to offer a new scope of thinking to their peers. They passionately wrote about topics that strayed far from the norms of society, including ideas about sexuality and religion.

Topic sentences:

Keeping an appearance of virtue and modesty was the existing view of sexuality during 19th century America.

While Whitman’s writing was no where near as graphic or as poorly written as Fifty Shades of Grey, when his infamous book Leaves of Grass was published in 1855, it stirred up just as much controversy. Critics and readers alike were in a mix of awe and outrage at Whitman’s blatant sexual themes within his poetry.

During the 19th century, engaging in “unconventional” sexual deeds was considered improper and shameful. Many religious protesters urged America to repress their sexual appetites and stop partaking in impure acts, such as masturbation.

In “Song of Myself”, Whitman takes a stab at the claims made by protesters like Graham, “I talk wildly, I have lost my wits / I am nobody else I am the greatest traitor” (lines 634-635). Whitman describes the “insanity” that he is supposedly suffering from, as he pleasures himself.

However, Whitman believed that embracing the sensual needs was a way of honoring the body. In James E. Miller’s, A Critical Guide to Leaves of Grass, he explores Whitman’s vision within his sexually charged poetry.

During the 18th century, America had undergone a period known as the Enlightenment. This era consisted of an awakening in areas such as science, art, and ideas about liberty. While God was still important to a select few, most people put religious ideologies on the back burner.

Emerson’s own views about God and his influence by Hinduism set him apart from, others during his time period.

In “The Divinity School Address,” Emerson also argues that the Church has left its followers feeling alone on Earth.

Much of Emerson’s belief system can be owed to the philosophies of Hinduism and other eastern religions.

Emerson did not fully believe in the Christian ideas of heaven.

Thesis:

Written in the midst of these many changes, The Scarlet Letter opposes typical Puritan values and instead embodies such nineteenth century themes as a love of nature, an emphasis on individuality, and an embrace of women’s rights and equality.

Topic sentences:

The love of nature expressed in The Scarlet Letter is one way in which the story reflects more on the nineteenth century rather than the Puritan era. 

Hawthorne too recognized that nature was not always welcoming, describing the area around as “a grass-plot, much overgrown with burdock, pig-weed, apple-peru, and such unsightly vegetation” (1358).

Another way in which the story speaks more to the nineteenth century than to the Puritan era is through an emphasis on the individual.

One Puritan, John Winthrop, stressed the importance of community when he said, “We must delight in each other, make each other’s conditions our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together” (216).  This declaration is a good example of the way Puritans thought about community. 

Clearly, The Scarlet Letter does not embody these same community values.

Emerson and Thoreau are united in their emphasis on nature. It is through nature that they best express self-reliance and spiritual understanding.

For Emerson, an understanding and embrace of nature is the path to self-reliance.

Like Emerson, Thoreau also saw nature as a critical part of developing self-reliance.

Thesis -- long but effective

During the colonial period, God and religion had an overt presence in Puritan literature. DIVISION 1>>> God was an omnipotent power that dictated the course of their lives, and was a powerful theme in their stories. SUBDIVISION A The Puritans believed that they were the chosen ones, and that God would guide them through life. Through this idea of providence, God was the cause for all occurrences both good and bad, and was generally considered a kind and nurturing God. SUBDIVISION B Coincidentally, Puritan literature also reflected the notion that a wrathful God would strike out at sinners and nonbelievers. DIVISION 2>>> However, the American thought changed and man began looking to reason and logic to explain everyday phenomena. This change in thought was reflected in literature as religion became secondary to man's quest to become a moral citizen as opposed to just a follower of religion. DIVISION 3>>> As transcendentalism became the vogue style of thought and writing in the 1800's, God was still viewed as the creator, but he was no longer a guiding force and thus did not have a critical presence in the literature of the times.

Body Paragraphs: note repetition of key words throughout each paragraph and how each sentence looks forward and backwards.

Religious themes such as providence figure prominently in several Puritan writings. PROVIDES CONTEXT FOR QUOTE>>>The literary critic <<<James Hartman defines providence tales when he states, "They were narratives that illustrated God's involvement and power in human affairs. The Bible is the providence tale, the history of God's creation of the world and of his dealings with his chosen people" (67). The Puritans felt that they were the chosen people and that God had unconditionally elected them to spend eternity in heaven. Subsequently, because they were the chosen people God would provide them with a safe passage through life. <<<SETS UP PARAGRAPH These concepts were explored by William Bradford in Of Plymouth Plantation. Throughout his chapter on the voyage to Cape Cod, Bradford repeatedly mentions that the Puritans were saved from precarious situations due to God's providence. The first reference citing the notion that God was guiding the faithful Puritans is when Bradford refers to the<<<SETS UP QUOTE "profane young man" that wished nothing but ill will on the Puritans. Bradford states, "But it pleased God before they came half seas over, to smite this young man with a grievous disease, of which he died in a desperate manner, and so himself the first that was thrown overboard" (167). This man greatly insulted the Puritans, and therefore they perceived that it was God's will that this man cease to exist. Bradford also accredited to God's providence survival after a near tragedy at sea, their safe arrival to land, seeds to plant corn, and security from the Indians. However, it is when Bradford refers to the Puritans as "God's children"<<<JUST USES PART OF THE QUOTE that he is demonstrating his belief that the Puritans held a very strong relationship with God and that God somehow watched over them more so then any other group of people (173).<<<GOOD EXPLANATION HERE. God was merciful to the Puritans, and he helped to ensure that they would conquer all obstacles.

When the enlightenment period became popular in America, there was a move away from using God and religion to explain worldly occurrences.<<<DIVISION 2 -- COULD HAVE SMOOTHED OUT TRANSITION, BUT DOES MAKE THE SHIFT CLEAR Deism, or the idea that God strictly created the universe and then left man to his own devices, was adopted by writers such as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine. Franklin clearly believed in a God and held religious values, but arguments based on reason were more in vogue and logical at the time. He said, "Tho' I seldom attended any Public Worship, I had still an opinion of its Propriety, and its Utility when rightly conducted…" (590). Franklin declares that he is dissatisfied with public worship because the preacher is more concerned with making them "Presbyterians rather than good citizens" (591). Franklin incorporates religion into his life, but he would much rather focus on the contributions he can make to society and his quest to for moral improvement. His use of the word "Utility" demonstrates that he viewed public worship as a function that man is required to fulfill rather than an uplifting experience. <<<BETTER JOB HERE OF FOCUSING ON A SINGLE WORD AND WORKING THROUGH IT -- STRIVE FOR SIMILAR DEVELOPMENT IN YOUR OWN WORK

In his Backgrounds of American Literary Thought, Rod W. Horton reports that, “The transcendentalists . . . encouraged individualism and self-reliance” (117), and asserts their “insistence on the essential worth and dignity of the individual” (127). Self-reliance and individuality were of great importance to McCandless.  He had made up his mind to be reliant upon no one else -- capriciously quitting jobs, declining gifts and charity, spending long stretches with no human contact at all. McCandless wanted to prove that he could make it on his own with little help, monetarily or otherwise, from others. He was particularly adamant about not accepting help from his family. He wanted to accomplish his goals personally, without the advantage of his upper class upbringing. He even told his parents that “on principle, he would no longer give or accept gifts” (Krakauer 20). Even more striking is McCandless’s burning of the little cash he had while on the road “in a gesture,” Krakauer says, “that would have done both Thoreau and Tolstoy proud” (29). Thoreau had lived simply on the shore of Walden Pond with little or no expenditure of money and without a partner. This kind of extreme self-reliance is emulated by McCandless in his refusal of intimate relationships. As Krakauer explains, “Chastity and moral purity were qualities McCandless mulled over long and often” (65). The transcendentalist connection is clarified by Krakauer’s revelation that McCandless had circled a particular sentence in the “Higher Laws” section of Thoreau’s Walden: “Chastity is the flowering of man; and what are called Genius, Heroism, Holiness, and the like, are but various fruits which succeed it” (66). McCandless took Thoreau at his word, and practiced what the nineteenth century transcendentalist preached.

Along with a need for self-reliance, McCandless sought rugged individualism as an antidote to what his biographer describes as “the stifling world of his parents and peers, a world of abstraction and security and material excess, a world in which he felt grievously cut off from the raw throb of existence” (22). To this end, he created “an utterly new life for himself, one in which he would be free to wallow in unfiltered experience” (Krakauer 22-3). This self-emancipated individual completely severed all ties with his former life. He deserted his family, changed his name, dumped his driver’s license, and “forgot” his social security number. “Alex,” as he now called himself, no longer felt obliged to follow the rules of conformist society; he could now proceed as a true individual. Krakauer builds on his description of Alex’s nonconformity by adding that he “answered to statutes of a higher order -- that as a latter-day adherent of Henry David Thoreau, he took as gospel the essay ‘On the Duty of Civil Disobedience’ and thus considered it his moral responsibility to flout the laws of the state” (28). Ruth Lane interprets Thoreau’s stance as one in which “we must ‘mind our own business,’ becoming self-governed individuals, where government implies neither absolute sovereignty nor autonomy but the affirmation of self-chosen principles in the face of whatever challenges the environment may impose” (286). Alex would surely have agreed, as demonstrated in his principled disregard of “no trespassing” signs, circumvention of border checks, and refusal to carry identification. Like Alex, “Thoreau turned for guidance to the natural world and its operations, and to the human individual’s place in that world” (Lane 285). Alex believed that conformity, whether legal or social, is the cause of much unhappiness. Pursuit of adventurous individuality was his proposed cure. In a letter to a friend, Alex urged such a remedy: 

So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take theinitiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism . . . . The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences . . . it would be a shame if you did not take the opportunity to revolutionize your life and move into an entirely new realm of experience . . . . We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living.” (qtd. in Krakauer 56-7)

This entreaty is in keeping with Thoreau’s lament in Walden that, “men are not so much the keepers of herds as herds are the keepers of men” (1901). Alex’s proscriptions against conformity can also be traced to Emerson. When McCandless speaks of the miserable trap of conformity, he echoes Emerson’s insistence that “Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist . . . . I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions” (1165). The individualism that Alex advocates as an antidote to such misery also brings profound joy to Whitman: “Alone far in the wilds and mountains I hunt, / Wandering amazed at my own lightness and glee” he trills in “Song of Myself” (lines 175-6). Alex articulates his own conception of the transcendental individualist: “No longer to be poisoned by civilization he flees, and walks upon the land to become lost in the wild” (Krakauer 163). Civilization -- conformity -- is the enemy which McCandless felt the true individual must strive to escape and ultimately conquer. 

The Evolving View Of Body And Soul From Puritanism To Transcendentalism

I do not understand my own actions.  For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.  Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good.  So then it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me.  For I know that nothing good dwells within me that is, in my flesh.  I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.  For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.

Were these lines written by a Puritan writer in 17th century Massachusetts Bay Colony, with its strict view of good and evil, sin and virtue?  A member of a society that saw the body in conflict with the soul?  Actually they were written by an influential writer from the 1st century of the common era-Paul, author of many books in the New Testament of the Bible, to the Christian community in Rome.  From the writings of the Puritans, however, we can see the influence this view had on people whose lives were infused with Biblical teaching.  Puritans had a very definite sense of the dichotomy of the body and soul -- that the body with its carnal desires was at constant war with the soul in its quest for Heaven.  The view of the connection between body and soul changed dramatically from the colonial period to the 19th century.  Whereas the Puritans saw a daily conflict between body and soul, this view evolved through the time of the Transcendentalists eventually to a view of harmony between body and soul.  Where the Puritans saw the body as inferior to the soul, the Transcendentalists gradually came to see the two as equals.  This evolution of the relationship between body and soul can be seen in the works of Anne Bradstreet, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman.

A Robin Redbreast In A Cage

He grabs me suddenly and yanks me up against him, one hand at my back holding me to him and the other fisting in my hair. "You're one challenging woman," He kisses me, forcing my lips apart with his tongue, taking no prisoners. "It's taking all my self-control not to fuck you on the hood of this car, just to show you that you're mine, and if I want to buy you a fucking car, I'll buy you a fucking car," he growls. (262).              

Lines like this may seem like they were authored for an obscure pornography script, but they were pulled from E.L James’s nationwide best seller, Fifty Shades of Grey. Sixty million copies have been held like precious gems in the arms of concupiscent women and men alike. Modern day America is no stranger to once forbidden topics, such as sexuality and religion.  While most have become desensitized to such material, these topics would cause the average nineteenth century American to roll painfully in their grave. Today, announcing your sexual orientation or religious ideologies has become as easy as updating your “About Me” section on Facebook. During the nineteenth century, ideas like this were not generally spoken out loud -- and were most definitely not broadcasted to strangers.  Separating from other writers, the Transcendental authors Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman ushered in a new era of thinking, which revolutionized the way some people perceived themselves in the world. Each author was rebellious for their time period, daring to offer a new scope of thinking to their peers. They passionately wrote about topics that strayed far from the norms of society, including ideas about sexuality and religion.

The Scarlet Letter: A Puritan Story or a 19th Century Novel?

Written in the mid-nineteenth century but utilizing as its setting a typical 17th century Puritan town, The Scarlet Letter tells the story of an adulteress and her subsequent punishment imposed by a patriarchal society. The author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, though raised during the nineteenth century, was greatly influenced by his Puritan ancestors. Seemingly fascinated with their strict, religious way of life, Hawthorne saw an opportunity to portray the human spirit under extreme conditions. The Puritans were group of people consumed by the thought of sin. They allowed God and religion to rule their everyday lives. Though this story typifies many Puritan concepts, it actually opposes several Puritan values, reflecting more on the period in which it was written. During the nineteenth century, people began thinking differently about the world and its traditions. Transcendentalism, with its radical new ideas about religion, philosophy, economics, and more began to revolutionize America's way of thinking. Additionally, while the right to vote was being extended across the nation to "the vast majority of white male adults," many other people were denied this same right (Neale 340). This led to the fight for women's rights in the mid-nineteenth century. Written in the midst of these many changes, The Scarlet Letter opposes typical Puritan values and instead embodies such nineteenth century themes as a love of nature, an emphasis on individuality, and a value of women's rights and equality.

Nature Walk

I remember many summers camping with my family in the wilderness.  We  traveled to places both far and near and spent weeks on end roughing it a tent or sharing a tiny camper with 6<<<SIX or 7<<SEVEN: SPELL OUT NUMBERS WHEN USING MLA FORMAT people.  We built our own fires, caught our own fish, and discovered all that nature held for us.  We cooked, played, and slept in the woods.  To me these trips were always a time for exploring new and wonderful things and a time to get away from every day hassles and relax.  Because of all these trips, whenever I feel stressed out and need some time to get away, I escape my responsibilities and go for a quiet nature walk.  Breathing in the fresh air helps me to relax and enjoy my beautiful surroundings.  My father has taught me that nature is something to respect and appreciate, and I have always felt safe and relaxed in the peacefulness of the outdoors. But American views of nature haven't always reflected my own. . . .

The views of nature have changed from the Puritans view of an evil nature, through the Enlightenment view of nature as something to learn from, to the 19th century worship of nature.