Mob Mentality In The Fat Boy And Into The Wild

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How has society impacted members of society? Society has been a major part of our civilisation from as long as we can remember. It has s been placed to keep us humans in check to insure we remain civil and live in harmony with other members, yet the norms of society have been constantly changed over the centuries in order to keep up with the changing generations over the years, with a new set of regulations to follow. It's one of our basic instincts to be wanted and to fit in with the mob and because of this we all tend to follow these rules, this is known as mob mentality where the term describes how people are influenced by their peers to adopt certain behaviours/ follow trends, for most of the times the changes made to society have benefited …show more content…

The Fat Boy written by Owen Marshall is a short story that highlights the mob mentality of the community and shows how society in this text negatively influences people. The plot of the text is that the townsfolk bring into being a fictional personality ‘The Fat Boy”, whom they use as a scapegoat for their crimes. Despite Knowing the truth the townsfolk blindly follow the mob. Eventually the fat boy becomes a presence that reminds the townsfolk of their conscience therefore get rid of the fat boy thus their conscience, therefore also shows how loss of conscience affects the community. Through the text Marshall reveals to the audience the tribal nature of small towns behaviour/‘mob-mentality’ which is shown …show more content…

The Fat Boy is repeatedly described in negative adjectives by the townsfolk such as evil, sly, malevolent, from this it is clear that The Fat Boy is an undesirable presence and through this the townsfolk are trying to demonise him, however in reality Marshall is describing the townsfolk as The Fat Boy symbolizes their conscience. an example of society influencing members negatively is Mrs Lammerton from the text who supports her husband in trail by using the Fat boy as an excuse even though he beats her, what is twisted here is everyone in the community knows the truth yet no one is ready to support her which means that the townsfolk are encouraging crime as they are allowing crimes to be committed with no consequences attached to it. Another example is when the fat boy is scapegoated for rape “The Fat Boy was seen at the IHC centre the day before Melanie Lamb was found to be pregnant...The music teacher who lived next door to the Lambs thought it a very significant recollection...It was a terrible thing the music teacher said to think that The Fat Boy could take advantage of Melanie's handicap, even if she was physically advanced.” This clearly shows that all the

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