Return of Martin Guerre Essay

Words: 933
Pages: 4

Starting with the premodern society and moving on to our modern society I will compare and contrast the two societies.

In the film The Return of Martin Guerre, the people lived on a pre modern society. They lived in a agricultural society and this was shown by many reasons. First they had permanent homes and used animals as well as tools to work their crops. They also used a crop rotation instead of burning the land. This is just a basic outline of the society that Martin lived in. Looking deeper into their social structure their society was much different than a modern one. As far as statuses and roles, Martins society believe that status was more ascribed than achieved. This meant that being an older person or a parent meant you

Less of you status is ascribed and more of it is achieved by doing things like going to school where you mainly encounter the secondary group. The status set is also much larger than before and role conflict does arise more often.

In a modern society there is also a big difference in group interaction. Unlike pre modern society which dealt with the primary group, the secondary group plays a major role in the lives of people living in a modern society. As mentioned above about family and school, a majority of our life in an information society involves dealing with people in the secondary group to achieve our goals.

There is also a large difference in specialization in a modern society. In Martins village each person had a similar job and shared experiences. In a modern society work is highly specialized and we rely on each other to do the jobs that were once done by only a few people. Things like building homes and growing food now come from entirely different sectors of our society. All of this is termed organic solidarity.All these specialized jobs are essential to our survival.

Finally, I will explain the differences between social personality. Unlike Martins gemienschaft, there is another term called gesellescaft to describe a modern society's personality. It basically means stranger and in essence that is what the society deals with daily strangers. In a