AP Language & Composition, Period 4
Mr. Bangs
April 30th, 2014
Corn-Pone Opinions Outline
I. Title and Author
a. Corn-Pone Opinions
b. By Mark Twain
II. Speaker
a. Famous Novelist, Reporter, and Editor
b. Social Critic
III. Audience
a. College kids
b. Labor Union Leaders
c. Managers and Executives
d. All of Society
IV. Subjects
a. Trends and fads
b. Social conventions
c. Herd Mentality
d. Independent thought
II.
V. Context
a. In this time period public education and printing is now accessible
i. Books and newspapers are frequently read by many people and are the sources of new trends and fads
b. Before the modern age, the internet, texting, and television
VI. Issues
a. Are our thoughts really our own or are they copied?
b. Fashions vs. Standards
c. How much approval comes from outside of ourselves and how much comes from others?
d. Are humans designed to conform?
VII. Stance
a. Twain believes that we often make our own thoughts but more often we copy what those around us and follow what our peers and parents do.
b. Twain states that we are creatures of outside influence and that our own self approval comes from validation by others rather than ourselves.
c. Twain states that we copy the trends we see around us without much self thought.
VIII. Evidence
a. “The hoopskirt runs its coure and disappears. Nobody reasons about it. One woman abandons the fashion; her neighbor notices this and follows her lead” (Page 718, Para 5).
b. “Our table manners, and company manners and wtret manners change from time to time, but the changes are not reasoned out: we merely notice and conform. We are creatures of outside influences; as we rule we do not think, me only imitate” (Page 719, Para 2).
c. “We know why Catholics are Catholics; why Prebyterians are Presbyterians; … We know it is a matter of association and sympathy, not reasoning and examination; that hardly a man in the world has an opinion upon morals, politics, or religion which he got otherwise that through his associations and sympathies” (Page 719, Para 3).
You May Also Find These Documents Helpful
-
e. But what about...? (That seems at odds with what we said before, what the author…
- 603 Words
- 3 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
1. What is the issue Twain is satirizing? That children blindly follow tradition and don’t think for themselves.…
- 488 Words
- 2 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
1. “I’ve seen it in the books; and so of course that’s what we’ve got to do.” “But how can we do it if we don’t know what it is?” “Why blame it all, we’ve got to do it. Don’t I tell you it’s in the books? Do you want to go to doing different from what’s in the books, and get things all muddled up?” (Twain 10).…
- 763 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
1. The messages communicated by Twain and McCullough similar because they both explain that life doesn’t come easy and if you want to make a change in your life, you have to fight for what is yours.…
- 673 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
Twain mentions on how we as teenagers and smaller kids should consider on hearing and thinking more when adults try to give us advice, because most of them have already been through what we are living now. On the lesson he gives us an advice on how becoming a better liar can make you a much smarter person in a very humorous and entertaining way.…
- 1060 Words
- 4 Pages
Better Essays -
Imitation can be simply defined as an act of copying or the assumption of one’s behavior observed in others. Humans are strange creatures with the ability to imitate and cope languages or ideas that makes “us” different and can be distinguished from animals. These all describes memes, which supports individuals to explore and experience new inventions through a way of imitating. In “ Strange Creatures,” Susan Blackmore promotes the theory that a little conscious “me” is created by the memes so as to replication. She discusses memes as a replicator that can help to control human thoughts and behaviors and believes everything can be passed from person to person. Memes allows people to fit in and imitate others to what society has offered; howerver,…
- 839 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
|Family |c. If they dont do it you not ifluences to do |d. If you see them do it you get influenced to |…
- 932 Words
- 4 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
a. The characters were influenced by their ancestors and peers, and did not follow their…
- 973 Words
- 4 Pages
Better Essays -
Mark Twain and F. Scott Fitzgerald are two widely known American authors who wrote great novels, but differ in many ways. They both wrote stories on life journeys, however; Twain used pre-adolescent characters to show how an individual should behave in society. Whereas, Fitzgerald uses adult characters to show how an individual is harmed by society. Mark Twain’s characters have many dreams in all Twain’s stories. On the other hand, Fitzgerald’s older, adult characters who still have dreams allow the larger community to affect them from pursuing his or her aspirations. The community doesn’t put a lot of pressure on Twain’s characters because most of them are just children. But on the contrary, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s characters are expected to fit in and do whatever the crowd does. So in the long run, Mark Twain’s characters benefit from society by pursuing their individual goals, and F. Scott Fitzgerald characters falter because they let society affect their dreams.…
- 968 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
This recurring theme of conformity reflects Twain’s anger stemming from the mass blindly abiding by the set political and societal dimensions established in the society. But his writing reveals more about the mind and art of Twain than its clearly anti-war, anti-chauvinistic theme indicates. Through the voice of his character, Twain echoes his own ideals and personality. This attack on conformist attitude paints his desired picture of a world in which he visualizes each individual with a unique identity, and this uniqueness can only come when each individual designs his or her own…
- 1371 Words
- 6 Pages
Better Essays -
Conformity and social influence is something that happens all over the world. People conform for all types of reasons, ranging from religion to the color or style of someone else’s hair. Social influence also plays a big part in conformity. Being socially influenced to wear a certain type of clothing can cause people to conform and completely change how they think or act. In this essay I will talk about social influences, conformity, and the ways that they can cause behavioral changes.…
- 771 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
In fact, Twain postulates that mankind’s “Moral Sense” manifests as the virus plaguing humanity with inferiority (Twain 4). Conscious recognition of wrong, constructed by the very morals believed to distinguish mankind, is the only prerequisite of immoral actions. Exhibitions of aforementioned iniquity are displayed within avarice, cruel violence, and the institution of slavery. Twain satirizes yet another unique aspect of humanity, oral language, by insinuating that mankind speaks of change, yet never actually works toward those ends. Animals, in contrast, “are the only ones who exclusively do their own work and provide their own living” (Twain 2).…
- 548 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
b. Based on the definition of deviance, we are all deviant at one point or another.…
- 383 Words
- 3 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
d. A body of law created by government entities that are concerned with private rights and remedies as opposed to criminal matters…
- 360 Words
- 2 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
(b)Social reformers had to discard the ancient texts in order to argue for reform in social practises.False…
- 1689 Words
- 7 Pages
Better Essays