The Dangers of Social Conformity Exposed in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Muriel Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie depicts the coming of age of six adolescent girls in Edinburgh, Scotland during the 1930's. The story brings us into the classroom of Miss Jean Brodie, a fascist school teacher at the Marcia Blaine School for Girls, and gives close encounter with the social and political climate in Europe during the era surrounding the second World War. Spark's novel is a narrative relating to us the complexities of politics and of social conformity, as well as of non-conformity. Through looking at the Brodie set and the reciprocities between these students and their teacher, the writer, in this novel, reviews the essence of group dynamics and brings in to focus the adverse effects that the power of authority over the masses can produce. Sparks, in so doing projects her skepticism toward the teacher's ideologies. This skepticism is played out through the persona of Sandy Stranger, who becomes the central character in a class of Marcia Blaine school girls.
Sandy's character is even more focally sculpted than the teacher's favored disciples who came to be known as the Brodie Set; a small group of girls favored by Miss Jean Brodie in her Prime. The Brodie Set is a social system and a enigmatic network of social relations that acts to draw the behavior of its members toward the core values of the clique. The teacher Miss Jean Brodie projects upon this impressionable "set," her strong fascist opinions. She controls this group on the basis that she is in her prime. Her prime being the point in life when she is at the height of wisdom and insight. Sandy pejoratively uses the personality traits and ideolog...
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...t this small group level, conformity dispels individual judgement. Sandy projects to us that this kind of social conformity under the pressure of authority, is to be blamed for many social problems and adversities in the individual lives of the Brodie girls, and in society at large.
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A distinct conscience is formed by the values and desires of one’s unique identity. However, common beliefs of societal standards can influence conscientious desires. In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee introduces a young girl named Scout, who learns about the difference between social conformity and human conscience. Through this, she notices the conflict it brings: choosing to conform or stand with your desire. Through Maycomb’s discriminatory principles, Atticus’ actions against common beliefs, and Scout’s comprehension of Boo, Lee reveals how society’s standards and conformity hinders personal desires for righteousness.
The question has been raised as to whether Oedipus was a victim of fate or of his own actions. This essay will show that Oedipus was a victim of fate, but he was no puppet because he freely and actively sought his doom, although he was warned many times of the inevitable repercussions of his actions.
In his Letter to The Grand Duchess Christina, Galileo challenged the widely accepted religious beliefs of the time, claiming that the conflict lies in their interpretation, not the context. In Galileo’s eyes science was an extremely useful tool that could and should have been used in interpreting the Scriptures. He argued that “the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven not how heaven goes” (Grand Duchess). The purpose of science was not to counter what the bible teaches; rather its purpose was to help explain the teachings of the scriptures. Furthermore, it was “prudent to affirm that the holy Bible can never speak untruth-whenever its true meaning is understood” (Grand Duchess). However, because of the terminology in which the bible was presented the perception of what the Scripture defined as truth was skewed. The Bible was written so that the common man could understand it and follow its commandments. The people also showed a greater inte...
Frankenstein describes all the bad things that he doesn’t like about his creation when it first comes to life, ‘yellow skin scarcely covered the work of his muscles’, ‘watery eyes’ and ‘straight black lips’. These things all explain things that most people would consider ugly and unpleasant in a person or creature. Frankenstein also thinks of his creation as a monster and wonders what, he feels is, a terrible thing he has done, ‘rain pattered dismally’ refers to the awful way Frankenstein felt when the creature came to life, Frankenstein felt as though he had done a terrible thing and that what he had created should be destroyed, ‘the wretch, the miserable monster whom I had created’ also refers to the way Frankenstein felt about his creation and what he sees it as. Frankenstein’s Monsters first experiences of life are confusing to him as his vision is blurry and his senses are not very good, almost like an infant, ‘dark, opaque bodies’, ‘oppressive light’, and ‘tormented by hunger and thirst’ all describe what the creature was going through and tells us that he is like a young child, who can’t get food for themselves and is adverse from bright direct light.
...cided to condemn Galileo’s work. While it does not discredit God’s power or the Bible, the overall tone of the scientist’s letter is quite sarcastic towards the clergy. While defending his first argument, Galileo appears to undermine the intellectual capabilities of his opponents. He implies that those who interpret the Holy Writ word for word belong to the “common people” whom he describes as “rude and unlearned”, and that other “wise expositors” should be the ones who search for the true meaning of the Bible. Galileo makes a similar implication while presenting his second argument, when he writes that the purpose of the Holy Scriptures is “infinitely beyond the comprehension of the common people”. The Catholic Church likely viewed these claims as an attempt to weaken its authority, which would explain why Galileo’s discoveries were condemned for nearly 300 years.
In order to distinguish between religion and natural philosophy, Galileo appealed to the centuries old sentiment of observation. If people were able to reproduce or procure their own instrument such as the telescope, they could simply observe the craters and shadows of the moon themselves. People would be able to observe the change in the appearance of the lunar surface in connection to how it was struck by the suns rays (Biagoli 2006, 106). In a broad sense, Galileo was able to build what we would call the basic elements of science today, validity and replicability, which allowed him to divide religion and
Galileo was a mathematician and a natural philosopher, who converted Copernicanism, which states that the earth revolved around the sun, into philosophy and the world’s true nature. By introducing new knowledge and using science to prove existing theories, he had caused a revolution by changing how people perceive the world during the last few hundred years and to doubt the authority of the Church, so as to spur on more people to confront the Church’s interpretations of the Bible and generate more knowledge.
One cannot be obedient to one’s power without being disobedient to another. In his article, “Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problem,” Erich Fromm argues people obey authority to feel safe. When one obeys, they become an ambiguous part of a whole, no longer accountable for actions or left on their own. In Ian Parker’s article, “Obedience,” analyzing Milgram's experiment, he claims people obey orders when there is no second option. According to Parker, if someone obeys an order, but there is no alternative, their accountability is lessoned. The two articles can speak to the tomfoolery that takes place in the motion picture, Mean Girls, which highlights a typical high school under the regime of the queen bee, Regina George, with her followers Gretchen Weiners and Karen Smith; the regime is usurped by a new girl, Cady Heron. Under the scope of Parker and Fromm, it can be argued that Gretchen was not disobeying Regina when she realigned with Cady, but actually remaining obedient to the social order of high school.
The late 1900s were a time of tremendous cultural change and instability in American history, but this change did not begin until after the relative unison of the late forties and fifties. After World War II (1939-1945) ended, a desire for normality led to large scale compliance to social constructs, with people reentering existing expectations such as men working, women tending the homes, and minorities functioning only as second class citizens. Because of these social barriers' reestablishment, conformity was simply the norm.
Myers, David G. “Chapter 14: Social Psychology.” Psychology. 10th ed. New York, NY US: Worth
Galileo Galilei was an Italian philosopher born in 1564. As an adult, he didn’t believe the universal geocentric theory of the planets and heavens which was established by the Catholic Church. The church taught that the Earth was the center of the universe and everything revolved around our planet. Another theory that the Church supported was that the Earth stood still while the sun rose and set every day. Society in the 1500’s believed that the Pope spoke for God through a divine connection and to against the church was to go against God. To speak out against the church in this time was strictly taboo. If one was to speak against the church was considered to be heresy, which is exactly what happened to Galileo. Galileo invented the telescope and began studying the heavens above and noticed that changes within the stars and planets. He noticed that the “stars” that surrounded Jupiter moved. He came to the conclusion through rational thinking, that the Copernicus’ heliocentric theory was correct. Copernicus was a scientist and philosopher whose theory proposed that the sun was stationary and the heavens orbit around the sun. Galileo tried to convince the church not to aboli...
As the student begins his essay, he points out that Sammy is part of the lower class structure. He is an “eighteen-year-old boy who is working as a checkout clerk in an A&P in a small New England town five miles from the beach” (2191). While working an afternoon shift on Thursday, he notices “these girls in nothing but bathing suits” (2191) enter the store. It is in this scene that the student begins to identify the differences between the group of girls and Sammy.
Higgins, Tory. “Self-Discrepancy Theory: What Patterns of Self-Beliefs Cause People to Suffer?”(1989). Advances in Experimental Social psychology, Vol.22 (1989):93-136. Academic Press Inc.
The central theme in “A Jury of Her Peers” is the place of women in society and especially the isolation this results in. We see this through the character, Minnie Foster and her isolation from love, happiness, companionship and from society as a whole. Not only does the story describe this isolation but it allows the reader to feel the impact of this isolation and recognize the tragedy of the situation.
Galileo in his letter to the Grand Duchess Christina states “If I am not mistaken they would extend such authorities until even in purely physical matters- where faith is not involved,” (Galileo as quoted in Spielvogel, 485). Galileo is stating that the church would continue to expand their authority until they have total control over all knowledge. If they were to control the knowledge, they could get rid of anything that might threaten the legitimacy of the bible. Galileo backs that up when he says “They would have us altogether abandon reason and the evidence of our senses in favor of some biblical passage, though under the surface mean of its words this passage may contain a different sense” (Galileo as quoted in Spielvogel, 485).