Raymond Dalton

Raymond Dalton Adam Padgett English 1101

Interpretive Essay
When given this assignment I automatically thought to myself what something is that I read this year that I would enjoy analyzing. I started looking over some chapters I have previously read out of Outliers. The chapter that I thought would be a great one to evaluate was chapter 6. In this chapter Gladwell talks about how if youre from the northern states then you are prone to act a different way than a southern would when a situation that involves violence occur. The author of the book also talks about how culture of honor plays a big role when determining how people act in certain situations. By culture of honor, Gladwell generally mean that if want to know why you act a certain way you can trice it back to where your great-great-great grandparents grew up to be affected by this. Also culture of honor is where you must keep your reputation as a man no matter what you have to do. When I did my reviewing over some certain sections in chapter 6 of outliers I noticed some things that I didnt see when I first read it. In this chapter at one point Gladwell says The triumph of a culture of honor helps to explain why the pattern of criminality in the American South has always been so distinctive. This statement goes hand to hand with my general thesis of the culture of honor. Gladwell is kind of restating the fact that culture of honor means generally as a guy if you are disrespected then you are to get even with the person who offended you or you have to kill them. Another thing that went well with my thesis was a quote Gladwell

Raymond Dalton

used on page-170. Gladwell states what the hypothesis of culture of honor actually was. Gladwell states The culture of hypothesis says that it matters where youre from, not just in terms of where you grew up and even where your great-grandparents grew up and great-greatgrandparents grew up and even where your great-great-great-grandparents grew up. This comment helps Gladwell restate what he said previously in this chapter. He stating the fact that if your family can trice back to certain area where they had to defend themselves more often; then you are prone to act like them in those same situation. This style of writing is not one that I am fan of but I tried my best to analyze some sections instead of summarizing the whole chapter. After I started to think about why would Gladwell even write about culture of honor in the first place? I even started to think about why Gladwell would even write this chapter. I was trying to find the reasoning on why he put this chapter in his book. I personally feel like Gladwell wrote this chapter to inform people that we all act in a way that is similar to our former ancestor when the time comes.