Operant Conditioning In Ernest Hemmingway's Up In Michigan

Ernest Hemmingway’s Up in Michigan tells the unfortunate story of Liz Coates, a waitress at a restaurant owned by D.J. Smith. Liz is infatuated with one of D.J. Smith’s regular customer, Jim Gilmore. He was the new blacksmith in town, who came to Hortons Bay from Canada. However, it was clear in the story that Liz’s affection for him is unrequited. Liz was obsessed with Jim as she constantly thinks of him and was smitten with everything that he does. Jim, on the other hand, barely notices her and paid no attention to her. When Jim left for a deer-hunting trip for three days, Liz found herself to be anxious over his absence and anticipated his return. She had hoped that something special would happen when he gets back, but in the end, Liz got …show more content…
Operant conditioning can be defined as a process of learning in which a previously neutral stimulus comes to evoke a voluntary behavior due to its personal consequences. Specifically, it is the condition where a behavior becomes more likely because it is followed by a desirable event or less likely because it is followed by an undesirable event. In the story, Jim kissed Liz and had sex with her forcibly. Liz, who was frightened by his behaviors, tried to talk him out of it but failed. Despite his drunken state, Jim’s actions would have brought him a sense of pleasure. The sense of pleasure that Jim had received from his actions could positively reinforced him to repeat his behavior, which was approaching a woman while being drunk. Therefore, he would have a high tendency to rape someone in the future while being drunk because of the positive reinforcement that he got from the pleasure he received during the incident with Liz. If Liz had tried to stop Jim by hitting or screaming him, Jim would not be likely to rape someone again in the future. This is because her actions would be an act of punisher which will make his behavior less likely to occur …show more content…
Learned helplessness is the condition in which a person suffers from a sense of powerlessness, which arose from a traumatic event or persistent failure to succeed. It is when people believe that they are helpless to change their life situation, even when they have the ability to do so. In Liz’s case, she was frightened when Jim started to kiss her. Even though she seemed to want to have sex with him, Liz felt that it was not right and wanted him to stop. Even after telling him stop multiple times, Jim continued to force himself onto her. Feeling helpless, Liz succumbed to Jim’s advances and was raped by him. Her failure to stop Jim has led her to a sense of helplessness. Liz’s failure has resulted in her believing that she was helpless or powerless to change what Jim had done to her, even when she had the ability to do