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Functionalism, Symbolic Interacitonism, And Conflict Theory

1133 Words5 Pages

In society, there are three theories that play a part in our everyday lives: functionalism, symbolic interacitonism, and conflict theory. Functionalism discusses how everyone contributes their weight to society, conflict Theory explores how society is always competing for limited resources, and symbolic interactionism is the way that people communicate from different classes. Evicted by Matthew Desmond displays these theories in numerous ways and shows the battle that tenants in Milwaukee face. Functionalism, Conflict Theory, and Symbolic Interactionism are all present in Evicted and we can recognize events in the story to those in our every day lives. Functionalism is a theory that states that there are working parts to society that contribute …show more content…

The tenants are responsible for paying him back but they often fail. The way that these two roles interact and are in correlation with each other is a prime example of functionalism. In addition, Sherrena Tarver and Belinda Hall work together to get more tenants and this helps Sherrena in the long run. Belinda manages the tenants that she brings in and then pays Sherrena the rent that they owe. Sherrena and Belinda coming together helped both of them in the end and built Sherrena a reliable source of help. Everyone in these situations are participating in their roles and contribute to society in their own …show more content…

This works more on a macro level of people, meaning sociolosts study individual or small groups of people and obtain a greater understanding of how communication can be impacted by what you may have learned in the past. “If you love books, for example, a symbolic interactionist might propose that you learned that books are good or important in the interactions you had with family, friends, school, or church” (OpenStax). This can explain why some people may act a way towards something while others act differently. Humans interact with things that have ascribed meaning and those ascribed meaning come from what we have encountered with others in our society (OpenStax). Essentially, the habits we learn when we are young can be carried on later into adulthood and it can shape how we interact with others. When it comes to Evicted, every interaction between the characters is a different way that people communicate. For example, Sherrena ignores Doreen when in her condo in Florida even though the Hinkstons have several issues that they needed to be fixed in their home. This is how the two use their roles to interact with each other. We continue to see Sherrena being cold to other tenants, but she changes with her environment. She seems sweet when she is at the convention and that is not

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