Conformity In Mark Twain's Corn Pone Opinions

Mark Twain’s purpose in “Corn-Pone Opinions” is to inform the reader that it is human nature to conform to the rest of society. According to Twain,”self-approval is acquired mainly from the approval of other people. The result is conformity.” (Twain 720). While humans provide opinions, many of them are based from the association with others. Twain claims that it is a basic human instinct to receive approval, mostly that of others. In his essay, Twain is attempting to persuade the reader to stop conforming with what society wants. It is through this process that many individuals abandon their own beliefs and principles.
Twain begins the essay with the pronoun “I”, but quickly shift to “we” in the next couple paragraphs. In the first paragraphs Twain uses “I” and he mentions how society and conformity work, but as he starts to describe the effect of approval he switches to “we”. This change is significant because it demonstrates the impact conformity has, even on the author himself. Twain is not immune from this approval and even states “we are creatures of outside influences; as a rule we do not think, we only imitate” (Twain 719).
He claims these are all areas in which individuals are influenced by “surrounding influences and atmospheres, almost entirely; not from study, not from thinking” (Twain 719). I believe Twain could not have broken the paragraph up because of how smoothly it all flows. The three different kinds of opinions are all influenced by one thing, self-approval. The series of subordinate clauses in the middle of the paragraph serve to strengthen the author’s argument. Twain is attempting to bring light to the questions of why people classify themselves as “Baptist” or “Republicans”. To which he then answers is because of an individual’s influences, if their neighbor is republican, it is very likely he will identify himself as one