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Erewhon
''Erewhon: or, Over the Range'' (〔In the preface to the first edition of his book, Butler specified that the "author wishes it to be understood that Erewhon is pronounced as a word of three syllables, all short ‒ thus, E-re-whon." Nevertheless, the word is occasionally pronounced with two syllables as "air-hwun" or "air-one".〕) is a novel by Samuel Butler which was first published anonymously in 1872. The title is also the name of a country, supposedly discovered by the protagonist. In the novel, it is not revealed where Erewhon is, but it is clear that it is a fictional country. Butler meant the title to be read as "nowhere" backwards even though the letters "h" and "w" are transposed, as it would have been pronounced in his day (and still is in some dialects of English). The book is a satire on Victorian society.〔George Orwell, ''Erewhon'', BBC Home Service, Talks for Schools, 8 June 1945〕
The first few chapters of the novel dealing with the discovery of Erewhon are in fact based on Butler's own experiences in New Zealand where, as a young man, he worked as a sheep farmer on Mesopotamia Station for about four years (1860–1864), and explored parts of the interior of the South Island and which he wrote about in his ''A First Year in Canterbury Settlement'' (1863).
==Content==
The greater part of the book consists of a description of Erewhon. The nature of this nation is intended to be ambiguous. At first glance, Erewhon appears to be a Utopia, yet it soon becomes clear that this is far from the case. Yet for all the failings of Erewhon, it is also clearly not a dystopia, such as that depicted in George Orwell's ''Nineteen Eighty-Four''. As a satirical utopia, ''Erewhon'' has sometimes been compared to ''Gulliver's Travels'' (1726), a classic novel by Jonathan Swift; the image of Utopia in this latter case also bears strong parallels with the self-view of the British Empire at the time. It can also be compared to the William Morris novel, ''News from Nowhere''.
''Erewhon'' satirises various aspects of Victorian society, including criminal punishment, religion and anthropocentrism. For example, according to Erewhonian law, offenders are treated as if they were ill, whereas ill people are looked upon as criminals. Another feature of Erewhon is the absence of machines; this is due to the widely shared perception by the Erewhonians that they are potentially dangerous. This last aspect of ''Erewhon'' reveals the influence of Charles Darwin's evolution theory; Butler had read ''On the Origin of Species'' soon after it was published in 1859.
抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』
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