Conscience

Conscious is that voice inside you that tells you what is right and what is wrong. For example, when you are young and you go to your friend’s house. You see your friend’s doll or robot lying here on the floor. You really like it, but you don’t take it. What is stopping you? Yes, it is conscience that stops you. You might say that it is only because you don’t want to get in trouble, but deep down inside it is because we can tell what is morally right from wrong.

 Lets say that you actually did steal the toy and manage to get away with it from being caught. You will never feel right when you play with the doll. There will be this voice that reminds you that the toy is not yours. Even if it is the best toy in the world, it will loose its fun. Eventually, you would want to return the toy. This is all caused by the guilt you feel, and the guilt is caused by the conscience in you.

In the Red Badge of Courage, Henry struggles with his conscience because he did not stay and fight the battle. He tried hard to convince himself that what he did was right, but he is still worried and uncomfortable. What is the need to convince himself? If he truly believed that what he did was right, he would feel good in what he did. All of this comes down in conscience.

The Dark Side

The Dark Romanticism came out of romanticism and transcendentalism. Many thought of dark romanticism as the opposite of transcendentalism but in fact, they have the same basic ideas. Both ideas values expression of strong emotion and imagination. The difference is that they focus on different aspects of emotion and imagination. Romanticism and transcendentalism are a lot more optimistic. They are about the positive things in life, like the innocence and heroic characteristics of people and the beauty of nature.  The transcendentalists talk about achieving the human perfection. Dark romantics have a more negative view towards the world. Their works focus on the conflict between good and evil, effects of guilt and sin, the destructive underside of appearances and even madness. Some of the leading dark romantic writers are Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman Melville. In Nathaniel Hawthorn's famous novel, the Scarlet Letter, Dimmesdale suffers from sin and his own guilt. He is a minister and tortures himself for his secret sin. Many of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories are also really dark. Many of his stories talk about mad people or describing people that are about to get killed. I think the scariest part of his stories is the anxiousness and fearful tone. To me, dark romanticism is just like scary stories but at a deeper and more thoughtful level.

The Transcendentalists

The transcendentalists looks beyond, or transcends,  everyday experiences and seeks for ultimate truths. They believe that by looking at each individual person and by getting to truly understand them can they find out about the reality of God. They try to look past the physical appearances and into a person. They are idealists that work to achieve human perfection. The leader of the transcendentalists, Ralph Waldo Emerson, says that the idea is "the very oldest of thought cast into the mold of these times" Their ideas effect American today because there are still some American that think like them. They try to achieve human perfection.
To me, their ideas are very confusing. I do not understand how to "look beyond" everyday experiences to find truths about God. I also don't get how they connect the physical world to the spiritual. How can we, by understanding the physical world, get to find out about God? However, there is one part of their belief that I agree with. Although I don't know how the transcendentalists define "human perfection"but I believe that most people do have goals to improve themselves. I, for one, try my best to do what I can. I work hard in school, but also spend time with friends to make myself happy. Although it is sometimes hard to find a balance in between the two, I still try. For me human perfection is to be able to achieve all of your own goals.

Romantic Values

In contrast to the pervious time period, the age of reason, the romantic values imagination and freedom. Romanticism values emotions, feelings and individuality. It emphasizes freedom of thinking and closeness to nature. In romantic artwork, things are sometimes abstract or not clear. It believe it is so because our emotions are not something that is set in stone. There is a lot of in-betweens and different sensation when describing emotions. Imagination is something that is even more abstract. Every person thinks differently. An artwork created by a person with a certain feeling might give another person that is looking at the artwork a different feeling.

One thing I found very interesting that this time period came right after the age of reason. The age of reason is the total opposite of romanticism. It seeks to prove everything in the world. Everything should the clear and precise. People tried to find reasons for everything. Artworks during that period are usually very balanced, with a focus on form and unity. It seems as though there is a lack of emotion. People seek to derive, prove and ration things in the world. How Romanticism came out of Reasoning is a total mystery for me. Did people just get tired of solving and proving everything? Or did people just one day find out that emotions are very important too and took a 180 turn and focused on the other direction?

The American Romantic Hero

Young, intuitive, and close to nature. These are the major characteristics of the American Romantic Hero. These heros are common throughout stories and novels during the Romantic Period and even afterwards. Indianan Jones is an example of such hero. His adventures and explorations in the wild fascinate audiences. In the modern day, we have a different kind of hero. Spiderman, Superman and Batman are heros for many little boys and girls. These hero all have super powers and use them for the good of the people. They hide their identities so that they would not gain fame from what they do. 
A major difference between stories of the American Romantic Hero and of the modern heros is that the settings are drastically different. In the past, people seem to be closer to nature, so the Romantic Hero would be and adventurer that can live successfully in the wilderness. In the modern days, however, most people live in cities. The heros that they prefer are those that share the same settings. The modern day hero lives in the city just, like us, except they have another secret identity that he uses to save mankind. Curiously, the modern hero also has to possess some kind of super power. People nowadays only look up to those that are special and physically different from the rest, while in the past, heros are just normal people that have determination and skills.

Freedom and Equality

These two words have been used to describe America since the creation of the country, but are these words true illustrations of the country? Most might say yes. However, looking back o history, these words have not applied to many that lived in he United States. Did the slaves ever experience freedom, much less equality, before the Civil War? What about the Native Americans that have been relocated again and again to smaller and less fertile land? How can they experience freedom when they are trapped in a reservation? 
Although the road to reaching equality is still long, conditions have improved greatly in the modern world. Many, or even most of us take freedom and equality for granted. We have the luck to live in these conditions without fighting for it. We are so use to living in such environments that we take it all for granted and turn our cravings to other things. If we had to fight to attain those conditions, we will cherish it more when we have it. For some people in the world, they are still struggling through these problems. The women in Muslim countries, for example, are still far from gender equality. People from lower social classes are also striving for equality. For those that have to luxury to enjoy freedom and equality, we should be more grateful.

The American Ideal

"We will walk on our own feet,
We will work with our own hands,
We will speak with our own minds."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I think this quote reflects the American Ideal very well. Even from before the United States was a country, the thirteen colonies that founded the country had wanted independence from British rule. They fought a war for their freedom and independence. In the Declaration of Independence, it stated that people have the right to "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness." Also, in the First Amendment to the constitution, it says that people have the "right of speech". Included in these famous documents that form the foundation of the Unites States is parts of the American Ideal. Even today, this statement applies. Americans still value individual rights as something very important in their society. 
In the Taiwanese society, this quote might now apply. Yes, individuality and independence is valued, but its is not as important as some other things that ties us back to our history. I feel like the Chinese and the Taiwanese view family histories and the name and honor of families and the individual persons in the family. They take pride in their family names and care much less about each separate person. The reason to this might be because there is a large human population in China. They see groups of people as more important that single persons.