The �Brains� Behind the Genius

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and being utterly dedicated to helping his ridiculed friend, Huck exemplifies self reliance by rejecting the traditions and norms of the society that he lives in. Emerson�s �Self Reliance� reflects the issues at stake in Huck Finn�s moral dilemma by promoting the idea of staying true to oneself in spite of the negative consequences, as clearly exemplified in this novel as well as in Civil Disobedience and The Bear.

Emerson�s essay, �Self Reliance,� demonstrates that if an individual remains self reliant and true to himself, in spite of being misunderstood and possibly ostracized by society, he will ultimately fair better as a person and take a place with other great men of history. Emerson states:

�There is a time in every man�s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to ...

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Emerson challenges his readers to be original and true to themselves by cultivating their own ideas and aspiring to their own �transcendent destiny (Emerson, pg. 1).�

Such ideas exemplified in Emerson�s Self Reliance reveal the issues at stake in Huck�s moral dilemma in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In this famous novel, Mark Twain portrays the character of Huck Finn as a perfect illustration of Emerson�s and F. Scott Fitzgerald�s viewpoints. According to F. Scott Fitzgerald, �the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function (Fitzgerald, The Crack Up, pg 1.�). Fitzgerald ...

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