Social Structure And Anomie By Robert K. Merton

The article Social Structure and Anomie, published by Robert K. Merton in 1938, focuses on societal pressures that an individual experiences in order to achieve a social goal, however, they do not have the necessary means to reach that desired goal. Merton emphases on the American Culture and Anomie as he believed that all United States citizens strived for the “American Dream”; however, the ways in which citizens obtain the “American Dream” of success are not the same, simply because not all citizens have the same opportunities and advantages (Bond, 2015). He concentrated on the five different types of deviances: conformity, innovation, ritualism, retreatism and rebellion (Bond, 2015). The 2014 high-profile case of Michelle Carter and Conrad Roy took place in Massachusetts. They were in a long distance relationship in which Carter was only seventeen and Roy was eighteen years of age, when he committed suicide in his truck from generating carbon monoxide with closed windows. Roy suffered from depression, which Carter looked at as an opportunity to pressurize him into taking his life. She was texting Roy for a period of time pressuring him to take his life over text. “In the opening statement of District Attorney Maryclare Flynn said Carter, wanted sympathy and attention from other girls at school, yearning to be the “grieving girlfriend”
Carter later texted a friend describing his Roy’s last moments before he took his life as; “Sam his death is my fault like, I could have stopped him I was on the phone with him and he got out of the car because it was working and he got scared and I told him to get back in” (People Crime, 2017). The prosecution labeled this as an