Defence Mechanisms

Defense Mechanisms


The three books, Mrs Dalloway, The Hours and Civilization and Its Discontents all dwell upon the subject of deviance and discontent. Robert K. Merton, one of the most influential theorists of our century, developed the term deviance. Deviance is referred to as the dissention of an individual’s behavior with the accepted norms of the society he is a part of. Merton’s theories concentrated on how the social structure of society influence’s an individual’s behavior. He argued that a particular type of structural arrangement of society contributes to the emergence of anomie, and subsequently, to crime and deviance. Anomie is a state that results from rapid social change which means that norms and values are less clear which increases the likelihood of individuals to engage in deviant behavior. Merton argued through this theory that people are deviant because they have been socialized to beli...