Compensation

              Compensation

                                Ralph Waldo Emerson.

                                                                            
                             

                

                                             

                                           

                                       The Title is very apt to its meaning and context .The poem which written by Emerson is full of philosophy and transcendentalism.

Main idea of the poem is    “Balance in in balance”.

                        The speaker asks the question like

                      “Do I have a right to be happy when others are not?.

               It is also having the fact that everyone is not happy at the same time.

                                      The reader have the question that is he talking to the readers or himself and he also presents the reality that inbalance cannot be removed. This poem is having a direct question and the speaker asks it himself.

                          This poem is in a mood of meditation in which the speaker tries to meditate himself. In the see of full questions regarding equality .Emerson seems to be a preacher here who shares or preaches the “Buddhist Philosophy” so as to human being is unique and no one is superior or inferior .This uniqueness makes all human beings equal otherwise these is no equality among people because everyone is different in their own fields that is way they are unique. Though, all posses’ dissimilarities, their dissimilarities make them all different and this is their uniqueness.

           The writer has used figurative language in this poem. In which he bifurcate two things .On one side there is an individual and on another side the society itself. The very direct question makes the whole poem clear that is

                  “What do you mean when you say you are not equal to somebody?”

                             He intentionally uses the world ALONE in the line.

                         “I sit and mourn alone.”

                       He does not use lonely but rather alone to spread his ideas but nobody will belive or accept this idea that is why he is all alone. In second stanza he says,

                      “And why when mirth unseals all tongues”.

                      He is freely singing his ideas with regard to uniqueness .He sings about the mirth or joy .Indirectly the speaker makes the reader aware of the fact that when you wish to be equal to someone means you are hating your own position or status and want to be equal to that person’s position. Every person has his or her own talent which others do not have.

                             What becomes more impotant here is satisfaction what matters here is one’s work and how the way one works. Those who are satisfied their needs have been fulfilled. They are happy because the period of happiness is short lived. Emerson’s poem does not have poetic qualities but philophical one and this poem is not exception in this. Position does not give you equality or happiness but one’s satisfaction gives that happiness.

                                  The Indian philosophy of “KARMA” is very applicable here .In short, the speaker makes everyone equal by saying that we are not equal and this is how it makes everyone equal. Thus, all have this kind of uniqueness.