Disobedience, the so-called “original vitrue” by Oscar Wilde, stimulates change. Whether this change is for the better or not can be left to the eye of the beholder, but it would be difficult to argue that disobedience does not stimulate change, regardless of the act of disobedience. Even an act of disobedience that only one person knows about can affect the overall reality. Recently, I watched a movie in which the female protagonist would take a paper every day without paying for it because the shop sold coffee for double its worth, as a sort of defiance against “the Man”, as she calls the shop. Although nobody else realized she would do so, it changed who she was as a person. This was significant because in all aspects of life save this, she was compliant, mild-tempered, and unwilling to step out of the societal norm. However, with her …show more content…
This seed of defiance can then become sown into the people who she surrounds herself with, such as the tourists who come through her guided tours, or her children, who see her every day, or even the person she passes on the street, if that defiance radiates through her. Found in the pages of The Lord of The Flies, by William Golding, are acts of disobedience which lead to negative social change. In this book, children become crashed on an island, due to an unfortunate plane crash. Instead of attempting to maintain order, civility quickly crumbles with the increasing demand for food and safety. With the civil war between the two oldest boys, Ralph and Jack, emerges the war between civility and savagery. Jack makes it his personal mission to smash any and all boundaries of his utter and complete takeover-- that of savagery, of the destruction of all societal rules. In