in Wieland, how well do people (individually or collectively) govern themselves? And what might we begin to think Brown has to say about "self-government"?

The novel is, after all, very much interested in what guides people's conduct. So here are the specific questions for this week: What examples do we have in the novel of characters rejecting their inheritance (literally or metaphorically), of breaking with custom and tradition? And how does that turn out for them? What forces guide the characters' conduct? What things seem to be good guides and what things bad guides?