Freshman Year Writing, Part 1

Here are two essays that I've written. In the first, about a Emerson, I argue that the doctrine of "self-reliance" is a doctrine of obedience, rather than freedom. In the second essay, I look at the different ways that black protest writers used religion before and after Emancipation.

Obedience and Destiny in Emerson's Self-Reliance:

Emerson is calling for a total merger of a man with his Self, and thus a proximate a merger of man with God. All told, Emerson’s supposed doctrine of “defiance” quickly reveals itself to become a doctrine of obedience. Self-reliance might as well be God-reliance.

The Uses of Religion in Du Bois and Douglass:

To conclude: Du Bois, in his discussion of sorrow songs in the final essay and his juxtaposing of them with European hymns throughout, suggests an answer: integration through the self-assertion. He wants both Black and White elements of society to be at once productive and self-containing, to interact as “co-worker in the kingdom of culture” (Du Bois 5). These Sorrow Songs represent all that is important to Du Bois’ conception of religion; in them, there are all the gifts that Blacks brought to America, “the soft, stirring melody,” the “gift of sweat” and the “gift of Spirit” (Du Bois 214). Thus, religion encapsulates the divisions that not only threaten to paralyze blacks, but also the very divisions that make their identity so important. He asks: “Would America have been America without her Negro people?” (Du Bois 215).