Non Conformity Ruins Society
Non Conformity Ruins Society
Whether they like it or not, everyone conforms to society in one shape or another. Acceptance keeps its number one spot as the most sot after goal. Most reach tolerance by piers first starting out in school as a young child and as they get older, many change in their mental state. They like new music, clothes and everything that makes an individual. However there, like on a pedestal for everyone to stair at, is the high standard of how to be, look like and act first introduced by Plato. That very par crushes human minds and molds them like robots; a cookie cutter life that is unreal. What happens when someone or a whole town breaks that mold? People become scared of the unfamiliar and that drives them away. Sherwood Anderson wrote about his experiences with non conformity in his novel Winesburg, Ohio published in 1995. Anderson grew up in Ohio being the third of seven Children. As a teenager, he had to leave school to support his family. He soon realized that he had a gift for story telling which he thought came from his father. With his brother, Anderson attended Wittenberg Academy where he discovered his true passion for writing. Most of his life, Anderson knew how it felt to be an outsider in a rapidly growing community. Being a writer was not an ordinary job of the early Twentieth Century. In Winesburg, Ohio, the story revolves around the people and the individual story instead of a greater plot. This was strange to see in novels but Anderson was not an ordinary person. He suffered, “a mental breakdown resulting in temporary amnesia” (“Sherwood Anderson”). That caused him to write even more about unusual events, people, and places. Not many people enjoyed his thinking outside the box and since he did not conform to what society told him to, it was hard for him to establish himself. Each character in Winesburg, Ohio relates to Anderson’s life and people around him. Every person in the town does not conform to society and that leads
Whether they like it or not, everyone conforms to society in one shape or another. Acceptance keeps its number one spot as the most sot after goal. Most reach tolerance by piers first starting out in school as a young child and as they get older, many change in their mental state. They like new music, clothes and everything that makes an individual. However there, like on a pedestal for everyone to stair at, is the high standard of how to be, look like and act first introduced by Plato. That very par crushes human minds and molds them like robots; a cookie cutter life that is unreal. What happens when someone or a whole town breaks that mold? People become scared of the unfamiliar and that drives them away. Sherwood Anderson wrote about his experiences with non conformity in his novel Winesburg, Ohio published in 1995. Anderson grew up in Ohio being the third of seven Children. As a teenager, he had to leave school to support his family. He soon realized that he had a gift for story telling which he thought came from his father. With his brother, Anderson attended Wittenberg Academy where he discovered his true passion for writing. Most of his life, Anderson knew how it felt to be an outsider in a rapidly growing community. Being a writer was not an ordinary job of the early Twentieth Century. In Winesburg, Ohio, the story revolves around the people and the individual story instead of a greater plot. This was strange to see in novels but Anderson was not an ordinary person. He suffered, “a mental breakdown resulting in temporary amnesia” (“Sherwood Anderson”). That caused him to write even more about unusual events, people, and places. Not many people enjoyed his thinking outside the box and since he did not conform to what society told him to, it was hard for him to establish himself. Each character in Winesburg, Ohio relates to Anderson’s life and people around him. Every person in the town does not conform to society and that leads
Cited: Anderson, Sherwood. Winesburg, Ohio. New York: The Random House, 1995. Frank, Waldo. “Winesburg, Ohio After Twenty years.” The Achievement of Sherwood Anderson. Ed. Ray Lewis White. Kingsport, Tennessee: Kingsport Press, 1966. Fussell, Edwin. “Winesburg, Ohio: Art and Isolation.” The Achievement of Sherwood Anderson. Ed. Ray Lewis White. Kingsport, Tennessee: Kingsport Press, 1966. Howe, Irving. “The book of the Grotesque.” The Achievement of Sherwood Anderson. Ed. Ray Lewis White. Kingsport, Tennessee: Kingsport Press, 1966. "Sherwood Anderson." Dictionary of American Biography, Supplement 3: 1941-1945. American Council of Learned Societies, 1973.