Transcendentalism is a movement that encompasses intricate idealistic and religious ideas. Ralph Waldo Emerson is a writer who truly believed in the ideas of transcendentalism and communicated these ideas through his writings and lectures. He believed in a direct relationship between man and God, as well as a relationship between man and nature. Emerson also believed in an American epistemology, and uses transcendentalism to define this new way of thinking. Fast-forward almost two-thousand years to today. It is a time where society values mass-production and commercialization, something Emerson would be opposed to. The SUV is an example which encompasses this well. In several ways, Emerson's ideas of self-reliance and transcendentalism have been interpreted into ad-campaigns for the SUV.
             Emerson believed greatly that God could be found through one's own self. A middle-man, such as a preacher, was not needed to find God because of the direct relationship he believed in. In this advertisement, the SUV is shown to have brought these people to the top of the mountains in order to enjoy the environment. The SUV is acting as the middle-man which Emerson so thoroughly did not believe in. The advertisement portrays the SUV to be able to produce a relationship with nature that a person may not have without the SUV.
             In Emerson's essay, Nature, man and nature share a unique relationship. Each is needed to appreciate the other, but he makes the point that man enjoys the upper hand over nature. Emerson also claims that nature was made to serve man along with his physical and spiritual needs. This is clearly stated in the last paragraph of the essay:
             The kingdom of man over nature, which cometh not with observation,--a dominion such as now is beyond his dream of God,--he shall enter without more wonder than the blind man feels who is gradually restored to perfect sight.
             With the SUV on top of the mountains...