Social Convention and Samuel Butler's Erewhon

     Ernest Hemmingway once described a novel by Mark Twain as, “…it is the ‘one book’ from which ‘all modern American literature’ came from” (Railton). This story of fiction, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, is a remarkable story about a young boy growing up in a society that influences and pressures people into doing the so-called “right thing.” It is not very difficult to witness the parallels between the society Huck has grown up in and the society that influences the choices of people living today. However, what is it that gives society the power to draw guidelines to define the norms, trends, and what is morally right and wrong in life? Is it always the best choice to listen

If society didn’t have standards that were enforced to help prevent harm to society by its members, how different would it be? These standards are broken into two different types, verbal and written. Although, one can distinguish between the two standards, verbal standards are those that are not written down, but yet passed down among many generations and are not easily enforce, whereas written standards, are the complete opposite. There were two attempts at a supreme law or the constitution of the United States of America to help with standards. These two attempts include the Articles of Confederation and The U.S. Constitution.

From the start of mankind, humans have been evolving in the way they think, in the way they speak and in the way they believe. The canonical literature created by some of the celebrated writers in the United States shows a shifting evolution in regards to conformity slowly progressing into individuality.

Judge Paul Heath Till’s essay “Morals, Manners, Customs, and Public Perception” has a very unique structure that helps the effectiveness of the author’s argument. By stating the problem, how the problem began, why the problem is important, giving definitions, citing sources, explaining his personal beliefs, and even giving advice, the author makes the structure of his essay very different and effective.

The social conventions of one region can differ throughout the world, this culture affects how we live and requires us to conform to the norms of the society we live in.

Across the course of human history, humans developed an odd concept that ended up dominating almost the entirety of modern life and dictating what people would do and say in many situations. This concept is known as social convention. As human society developed as an organized group, certain things became viewed as not appropriate for a certain society. This obviously varies across the globe, with different customs arising in different nations, but it is almost universal to have a kind of unspoken ruleset that everyone conforms to. Certain ways of living life are viewed as allowable, while others tend to be looked down upon, or if not that, simply do not yield the means for a comfortable life. While the vastness of the earth means that what is acceptable somewhere is unacceptable elsewhere, almost

Social conventions are unwritten rules in society that are treated as the norm and as such, can be misinterpreted as the right thing to do, making them very hard to oppose. However, in truth, following social norms is not always the correct thing to do. Budge Wilson’s short

Maggie Coviello Jaime Jordan English 242 10/27/14 Shakespeare is known for a multitude of things; His ability to make a play both funny and dramatic, his compelling and complex story lines, his multi-dimensional characters and last but not least, his strong female leads. Some of his female characters are celebrated to this day for being original and fierce in their convictions. One thing that makes his female leads really stand out is the fact that they were created in a time when patriarchy and female submission were norms among society. They challenged gender norms, and though he was not the first to write such strong female characters, he was one of the most widely recognized playwrights of that time.

This paragraph relates to the social interaction and described in the Chapter 3 about language and Chapter 5 that include group and social structure. We can see the characteristic of social interaction among persons, means response to someone behavior and can reflect the norms an values of the dominant culture and our socialization experiences within that culture (page 106). The social reality reflects a group’s power within a society and they are who define the values in that society. In Manchester we observed a diverse culture that has interaction between them and with people out of their own boundaries. That is why maintain respect to the values and norms of the American culture. In relation to the cultural variation we identify the language

Being an aspect that unifies people, society sets a stamp upon organization of their lives, in which social norms define interaction between its members. It is a so-called code of social norms that shapes people’s actions and their perception as normal or abnormal by others. That is to say, society makes its members justify behavior as acceptable or deviant in the result of the following precise rules of conduct or disobedience to do so.

In the Elizabethan (Eliza B thin) era, social class and standing were very important to the society and culture. The highest in standing had access to a better life, homes, jobs, and a longer lifespan. The best jobs peasants and serfs could hope for was to be a slave or servant to nobility, because whatever class you were born into was the class you were stuck with. The average civilian lived in a village that were mostly self-sufficient, meaning they didn’t need to travel very far to get resources they lacked. In more rural villages men and women were farmers and tended to the crops and animals. Whereas in more urban villages, men and women had more leisure time which they filled with games, theatre, and sports. Women in wealthier cities were

How has our society come to form the guidelines and rules  which we follow in our  everyday lives?  How are these principles set? In Charles Bazerman’s article “Speech Acts, Genres, and Activity Systems”, he gives us better insight into how our own communities (towns, cities, states, and countries) form these rules. These rules are formed via speech acts and genres.  Speech acts pave the way for what genres are, and genres from the rules our community sets.  Before we understand what a speech act is, we have to understand what a social fact is.  A social fact, as defined by Bazerman, is something that a community considers to be true.  An example being that most people accept that Elvis is dead.  However, social facts are not accepted by everyone.  There still might be people in the world that believe Elvis is alive, and there are also people that don’t believe Neil Armstrong went to the moon.  Bazerman describes a “speech act” as “meaningful social actions being accomplished through language” (367).  These social actions mostly are about social facts, or used to make social facts.  It is more or less how we communicate with each other.  I believe this is the start of how we form the standards of which we live by.  Communication has to be present in order for people in a community to be on the same page.

Analyze how unifying society through means of convention can impact relationships and understandings between people.

Living in a civilized society means we have some implicit agreements: we take turns, play fair, stop at red lights, and hold the door open for old

Each society establishes its standards in order to work properly. Those expectations define on how its members should and not behave, and how to relate to one another. Society’s guidelines and standards are referred as norms. Norms vary among different societies and even groups within societies may vary. Heslin indicates, “…values are the standards by which people define what is good and bad, beautiful and ugly”(2015, pg.49). Accordingly to their values, different settings and countries call for different norms. In the manner in which we are to behave in a theatre contrasts our behavior at a party versus the way we are expected to act a church. Based on the society’s priorities, some norms are unwaveringly enforced whereas lenient with