Troy Kell’s two murders can’t be completely explained by any of the theories of socialization covered in chapter three. The gender theory claims that a person’s gender informs their attitudes and behaviors, and as such has no application whatsoever since the act of murder can’t be construed as being a gender-directed activity that either males or females undertake when following their respective gender maps. Mead’s theory of Role Taking can’t be used to explain the murders; role taking denotes a person trying to view life from the perspective of another person, and though Kell’s actualization of that perspective change may have kept him from committing the murders, they don’t account for the perpetration of the two murders. Cooley’s theory
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74). Regarding the first murder, Freud’s theory would argue that the act was to placate the id’s desire for gratification in seeing the man who was threatening Shaw dead. The second murder was a direct result of a deviated superego informing Kell that black people were inferior to white people and therefore subject to murder. The problem with Freud’s theory as it relates to Kell, however, is that Freud’s ideas on id, ego, and superego can’t be reconciled with the fundamental tenets of sociology: Freud believed that the three personality aspects were manifestations of the subconscious mind with the id present at birth, while sociology at large believes that a person’s personality isn’t something that a person is born with, but instead a learned thing informed by a person’s interactions with society at large. Moving outside of chapter 3, a far more fitting explanation of Kell’s two murders lies in the teachings of Emile Durkheim. Durkheim believed that a person’s level of social integration (strength of bond between people and their social groups) is the main determinate of their actions. This claim explains Kell’s first murder (he was trying to protect someone in his social group that …show more content…
Living in the total institution that is prison forced Kell to change himself and his groups, with those groups acting as agents of socialization. Kell had two primary agents of socialization in prison: the guards, and his allies and their ilk. The guards were in total control of his life: they told Kell when to wake and sleep, when to eat and bathe, and when he could get exercise and socialization with other inmates. This control defined Kell not as a person, but as a prisoner. Kell’s allies were those that replaced his primary groups that Kell left on the outside; these allies instructed Kell on how to survive the violence and degradation of prison. One other effect of the influence of Kell’s allies was that Kell became somewhat of a white separatist, though whether that was wholly due to association with like-minded inmates or as an amplification of possible pre-existing racial beliefs isn’t clear. Regardless, the racist allies and their kind will also become a reference group to Kell, as their doctrine as taught to Kell becomes the primary reason that he murders a black man while in prison. What is clear, though, is the survival knowledge would soon prove useful, as his secondary agents of socialization, the rest of the inmate population, were determined to show Kell how dangerous prison life would be, forcing Kell to have to fight off a
74). Regarding the first murder, Freud’s theory would argue that the act was to placate the id’s desire for gratification in seeing the man who was threatening Shaw dead. The second murder was a direct result of a deviated superego informing Kell that black people were inferior to white people and therefore subject to murder. The problem with Freud’s theory as it relates to Kell, however, is that Freud’s ideas on id, ego, and superego can’t be reconciled with the fundamental tenets of sociology: Freud believed that the three personality aspects were manifestations of the subconscious mind with the id present at birth, while sociology at large believes that a person’s personality isn’t something that a person is born with, but instead a learned thing informed by a person’s interactions with society at large. Moving outside of chapter 3, a far more fitting explanation of Kell’s two murders lies in the teachings of Emile Durkheim. Durkheim believed that a person’s level of social integration (strength of bond between people and their social groups) is the main determinate of their actions. This claim explains Kell’s first murder (he was trying to protect someone in his social group that …show more content…
Living in the total institution that is prison forced Kell to change himself and his groups, with those groups acting as agents of socialization. Kell had two primary agents of socialization in prison: the guards, and his allies and their ilk. The guards were in total control of his life: they told Kell when to wake and sleep, when to eat and bathe, and when he could get exercise and socialization with other inmates. This control defined Kell not as a person, but as a prisoner. Kell’s allies were those that replaced his primary groups that Kell left on the outside; these allies instructed Kell on how to survive the violence and degradation of prison. One other effect of the influence of Kell’s allies was that Kell became somewhat of a white separatist, though whether that was wholly due to association with like-minded inmates or as an amplification of possible pre-existing racial beliefs isn’t clear. Regardless, the racist allies and their kind will also become a reference group to Kell, as their doctrine as taught to Kell becomes the primary reason that he murders a black man while in prison. What is clear, though, is the survival knowledge would soon prove useful, as his secondary agents of socialization, the rest of the inmate population, were determined to show Kell how dangerous prison life would be, forcing Kell to have to fight off a