"Nature" Technique Log

 The purpose of "Nature" by Ralph Waldo Emerson is to convince the audience of nature's benefits and beauty, and to appreciate every aspect of it.

1. Personification
    "Nature never wears a mean appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all of her perfections" (Emerson).
    By adding a gender and actions to nature, Emerson makes it seem more alive, therefore adding to the idea that people should truly love and appreciate nature. In this section of the piece, he speaks of how very few people truly see nature for the beauty that it is. By using personification, Emerson persuades the audience that nature has depth and mystery that makes it worth exploring.

2. Simile
    "In the woods too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child" (Emerson).
     Emerson uses this simile to compare a person in the woods to a snake shedding its skin. He believes that nature allows a person to feel younger and like a child again. This is one of the benefits of being one with nature, according to Emerson- to be able to metaphorically, if only for a little while, be young and free.

3. Imagery
   "The long slender bars of cloud float like fishes in the sea of crimson light. From the earth, as a shore, I look out into that silent sea. I seem to partake its rapid transformations, the active enchantment reaches my dust, and I dilate and conspire with the morning wind" (Emerson).
    In this excerpt, Emerson is describing the morning sky. He paints a picture with his words to show the audience how beautiful and breathtaking nature is. He seems to truly appreciate the splendor that he sees as he writes this, and wants others to see the morning sky in the same wonderful way that he did,