Emerson would have commended Douglass for his achievements. Emerson decried the evils of social hierarchy as when he stated, "A great man is coming to eat at my house. I do not wish to please him; I wish that he should wish to please me." Frederick Douglass was directly rebelling against white supremacy and the institution of slavery. Moreover, Douglass noted the role that social conformity and peer pressure played in creating the plantation culture of the south. When he first goes to Baltimore, Douglass is suprised by the kindness of Sophia Auld. Yet Douglass notes the effect of social conformity on Sophia in Chapter 7 of the narrative: "Slavery proved as injurious to her as it did to me. When I went there, she was a pious, warm, and tender-hearted woman. There was no sorrow or suffering for which she had not a tear...Slavery soon proved its ability to divest her of these heavenly qualities." Douglass suggests that the institution of slavery was at least in part sustained by the complicity of men and women like Sophia, who could not think for themselves. Slavery had a more immediate and visceral effect on Douglass. Because he practiced self-reliance while understanding the restrictionsn of racism, Douglass eventually does achieve freedom and even happiness. "It was a moment of the highest excitement I ever experienced," he writes upon arriving in New York (Chapter 11). Douglass proves that it is possible to achieve happiness in spite of the most formidable obstacles.
Gender roles and norms place restrictions on women, creating major obstacles to happiness. In Hawthorne's the Blithedale Romance, gender is portrayed as a significant social issue. Priscilla embodies the passive female who has no will of her own. In Chapter 20, for example, Priscilla is described as "only a leaf floating on the dark current of events, without influencing them by her own choice or plan." In Chapter 25, the otherwise strong Zenobia breaks down in a diatribe that upholds gender stereotypes. Zenobia calls herself "a woman...weak, vain, unprincipled (like most of my sex; for our virtues, when we have any, are merely impulsive and intuitive), passionate, too, and pursuing my foolish and unattainable ends by indirect and cunning," (Chapter 25).
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