In Samuel Butler's Erewhon, a traveler finds a land that is not totally unlike his own society, but he soon discovers that they have a very different culture from his. By using the failings of Erewhonian society, the author draws the reader's attention to flaws of his own society. This device is used in other works studied this semester, by creating a world that is not completely different from the author's own in an effort to make society realize its faults. Thomas More's Utopia is similar to Erewhon because it makes commentary on certain social issues of his time, disguised as a story about a different culture. George Orwell's 1984 and Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale were also written based on the societies in which the author's lived, but these stories take place in the same society at a different time, so they serve more as cautionary tales than social commentary.
             Erewhon satirizes many aspects of Victorian English society, including elements of religion, social injustice, and education. It is neither a utopia nor a dystopia, but rather a normal life for the Erewhonians, as they are not altogether unhappy, and a foreign place which the narrator discovers to be somewhat similar to his home country, but also opposite in many ways. By creating similarities between Erewhon and Victorian England, the flaws in English society which are commented upon in Erewhon become more apparent.
             Butler recognizes the flaws in England's present educational system in the chapters on Erewhon's Colleges of Unreason. He gives the name hypothetics to the main feature in their system of study. They believe that preparing students for any possible or impossible situation will prepare him for actual events of his life, and how to effectively deal with them. Butler acknowledges the deficiencies in the educational system of his home by inventing a school that is a reflection on his own exper...