Which thinker is closely tied to the idea of Self-Reliance and nonconformity in 19th-century America?

• A. Henry David Thoreau
• B. Walt Whitman
• C. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• D. Nathaniel Hawthorne

Answer: (C)

Self-Reliance and nonconformity spring from a belief in trusting your own inner voice and resisting pressure to follow the crowd. Ralph Waldo Emerson, a central figure in Transcendentalism, articulates this stance most clearly in his essay Self-Reliance, where he argues that individuals should rely on their own intuition and moral sense rather than conform to external rules or popular opinion. This emphasis on inner authority and personal independence became a defining thread in 19th‑century American thought and literature. While Thoreau championed living by conscience in practice through civil disobedience, and Whitman and Hawthorne explored related themes in different ways, the association with Self-Reliance as a named idea points to Emerson.