The Sociology of "The Stand"

There are books all over the world that have the potential to teach you things: How to write a novel, how to be romantic, and, most important of all, how to function well in society. I've read The Stand by Stephen King in both its edited and uncut versions and I can't help but feel that the reader has found quite the exemplary sociological legend amongst the pages of this particular fiction.

If it's been a while since you read the book, here's a quick overview to help jog your memory. If you haven't read it, I suggest you do before reading the rest of this paper. If you haven't read it and don't plan on reading it anytime in the near future, this will sort of help you relate to some of the things said throughout this piece.

A "shifting antigen virus" escapes government control via a rogue soldier running from the military base, where the virus was held when it broke through containment, in order to save his family. The virus spreads like wildfire with a kill rate of 99.4%. Almost the entire population of America dies from it. The survivors have dreams of either a Dark Man or an old lady and a cornfield. Those that dreamed of the old lady, Abagail Freemantle, headed to her house and from there to Boulder, Colorado. Those that dreamed of the Dark Man, Randall Flagg, were Las Vegas, Nevada-bound. Abby & Co. were the seraphs of the story. Those in the Randy Clan, on the other hand, were the incubi. The seraphs try to re-erect the government while the incubi prepare to destroy the seraphs. A pyromaniac in Vegas brings an A-bomb back to home base as a gift and it gets set off and kills everybody on the evil side and the good people are left to continue life as we know it. (Whew!)

Every term of sociology that my class has learned is embedded somewhere in this tale. Culture was visible all over the place. This story takes place just after an epidemic has restricted the population of America and, possibly (although that's not quite written in bold letters anywhere in the book), the rest of the planet. Different people were always meeting up and, even though they came from separate cultures and probably never would've even given each other a second glance had they passed on the streets of the "old" world, they needed each other too much now. Prime examples of this destitute nature being couples like Larry Underwood and Rita Blakemoor, and Fran Goldsmith and Harold Lauder. When the survivors started coming together in Boulder, Colorado, that was a culture of people that were scared, confused, and needy. These people wanted nothing more than to have things go back to the way they were, and have everyone be alive again. Glen Bateman, the book's wise sociologist, knew this and therefore instructed the others in his party (those that would later make up the ad hoc committee for the "Free Zone") to hurry up and get some sort of democracy under way before people started realizing that they didn't HAVE to go back to democracy. As a matter of fact, they didn't have to have an organized government at all. That knowledge amongst the masses would've been sure to cause some controversy. The lack of this sort of knowledge would ultimately lead to Randy's demise.

Norms are habits that come out of values and the biggest value at the time was the significance that was put on pregnant women, orphaned children, self-preservation, and bringing as many people together as possible. This is why Fran didn't take the sleeping pills since she thought they might hurt the baby; part of the reason why Nadine didn't leave Leo where she found him; why most people carried some form of protection with them against any wild animals that were still looking for a fresh meal or any humans that had gone mad due to the current condition of their world; why everyone came to the place that they dreamed about (Mother Abagail's home in Kansas).

A huge example of culture lag, or when one society has fallen behind another, was the way in which Randall Flagg's institution in Vegas (the opposing force to the construction of the Free Zone) automatically adopted a dictatorship. Everyone was too afraid of Flagg to even suggest that any changes be made in the government. The culture in Vegas was way behind the Free Zone because throughout history we've all seen that dictatorships are sloppy and inefficient. This situation is comparable to someone using paper and pencil, as opposed to a calculator, to do a math problem.

Culture shock, what happens when someone is thrown into a culture that's haltingly different their own, arose quite a bit, also. Some people just couldn't get with the program in the Free Zone, so they shuffled on over to Vegas. Though I don't recall any cases of any of Randy's folks running over to Stu, some did have the opportunity to stay, but Randy and/or the natural evil in their hearts just wouldn't allow the Free Zone's benevolence to overwhelm them. For one moment in time Nadine placed her entire life in Larry's hands, and Harold was really starting to feel like Colorado was the place that he wanted to be, but as soon as any little inauspicious thought or action knocked them off course, Harold and Nadine found each other and headed for Vegas.

The Stand, over all, could be decently explained by use of the conflict theory, which states that all of society is a war between the rich and the poor, the powerful and the weak, the high and the low; society is unequal and unstable. Think of any given group of people as a wheel placed just over the crest of a hill. The wheel's sole purpose is to progress, but this can't be done until gravity acts more heavily on one side of it, due to the inclination, and each side of the disk is constantly being toppled and lifted, creating movement. Well, society's sole purpose is to move on and become the best society that it can be. But in order for that to happen, there must always be a foundation (the side of the wheel touching the ground/the poor and weak) and a prepared counter-weight (the side of the wheel in the air about to be thrown to the ground/the rich and powerful that are about to fall). Under this theory, rebellion is a very functional part of society and history. Rebellion forces a group to look at themselves from the rebel's angle and, if a change is made, they'll most likely not go back to the previous method of operation again.

In The Stand, students will notice that there are two evident, opposing forces inhabiting America. The "good" side and the "bad" side. The good side is being operated by Abby Freemantle and the bad side is being orchestrated by Randall Flagg. At the end of the book, Randy's spot in Vegas is blown sky-high, and the people in Boulder 'win'. Now, at this point we have a prime example of how the conflict theory operates.

The folks in Boulder were a bit more concentrated on getting the American democracy back on its feet, while Randy was preparing to wipe all of Boulder off the face of the planet. He had the electricity going again, fresh water, clean streets, and had already begun having school for the children. Sounds pretty nice at first, but the fact that all this ran under a dictatorship would be his downfall. Before the 'big bang', people had already begun to seep away (note what I alluded to in the fourth paragraph of this paper). Dictators are usually the type of people who would kill someone for severing themselves from the group, and if Randy had killed every person that had planned to leave, he would have had no one left to (mis)lead.

Sticking strictly to the advice of "kill or be killed" at this point in the book, the Free Zone was definitely on the ground with Vegas high in the clouds. But then, Vegas self-destructs and overthrows itself, leaving the Free Zone as top dog. So, if Randy's establishment is gone, who's on the bottom of the wheel? Stephen didn't really go that far in the book, but it's a decision that the new world will unconsciously make for itself.

In recent years, there's been some to-do about schools requiring that their students wear uniforms. Taking this action was thought to be a way in which to increase attentiveness in class and decrease degrading remarks or separation of persons based solely upon the age or cleanliness of one's attire. The downside to such a motion is the fact that, according to the conflict theory, if we must be unbalanced, equality can never truly exist or society would be stagnant. The only way for a wheel to be stagnant on a hill is to fall over on its side. Humans couldn't stand to let that happen to society (whether they know it or not) and they will, therefore, find something to nitpick about. If not your clothes then your hair/shoes/backpack/ethnicity/background/money or anything else that could possibly separate any two people, just as long as the low have something to strive for, and the high have something to try to hold on to.

Education was one of the five sociological institutions that were represented in the story. Family, religion, politics, economics, and education are the building blocks of society. These institutions provide an individual with a sense of belonging, intimacy, generativity, support, exploration, and influence. All of these are keys to the development of a successful social human being.

Family was the very first institution to be rebuilt since the family is the oldest and most basic institution. Every group of people that came together, after the virus's killing spree had died down, became a family unit merely because the people that they used to be related to were now all dead. Note that the first goal on everyone's mind when they realize that most of the population really is dead and that they may be all that's left in an x mile radius, is to find other living human beings. Though there may be no blood or legal bond, the family unit is reborn out of necessity of the six provisions offered by the family institution.

Economy was the second of all the institutions to be severely affected as a consequence of the virus commonly called "Captain Trips". This is because of the fact that, for every person that died each second of the day, supply went up and demand went down. If 99.4% of the population has been wiped out, that leaves 0.6% of the population to pick up the slack. And that's a lot of slack. This probably would've been the last thing to be rebuilt since it hadn't been re-erected by the end of the book. An economy wouldn't really come into play anyway until they used up all the things that those from the old world left behind. The first business would most likely be a grocery store run by somebody who could package fresh meat and produce and keep it cool.

Religion was next to be affected due to the dreams. It didn't really matter if you were Buddhist, Christian, Sikh, or Shinto, after Captain Trips hits, your fate boils down to how good your heart is, how much you're willing to change, and/or how gullible you are. It's really a judgment call as far as where the rebuilding of religion lies. If a certain religion is instilled in you beginning at a young age you're probably going to pray or meditate (do whatever it is you do) to whoever even though/because things aren't real clear to you. Religion, as far as the whole of the Free Zone was concerned, never really was reestablished, but can you really say that something so internal every really comes and goes?

Government was the next to take a blow from the virus. Without anyone to run the country and no country to run, the government was ultimately doomed. The people left alive simply wanted to regroup. Since most remaining government officials (if there were any, mind you) would've been stuck in D.C., and only a handful of people survived in each state, they may have been able to lead the particular group of people that amassed in the capital, but with the dreams beckoning them west, they still would've all been compelled to move on, just like everybody else. Ironically enough, government was the first order of business to be addressed when everybody got together. As I've said, this is due to Glen Bateman's keen sense of society. How people are structured when they accrue is crucial to whether or not people ARE structured and able to move on to tending to the other institutions that they need to regenerate.

Speaking in terms of official school operations, education was the last thing on the minds of the Free Zone. The people in Vegas had already gotten started on it. Education is never really something that can go away. No matter where you go someone or something is teaching you. Larry unconsciously taught Rita (who probably didn't even know that she'd learned anything) that you don't wear the most expensive pair of sandals you can find when you know that you're going on a hike. Even the people of the Free Zone provided Harold with experiences that would make him realize that he could stay with 'the light' and live a happy, fulfilling life; that his fate was not necessarily predetermined, and he could help stop the end from coming.

Stephen King's tale can be solidly compared to William Golding's Lord of the Flies. This book was about a group of boys who became stranded on an island and whose makeshift civilization, without any adults or females around to represent the structured society that they were pulled from, began to break down completely in a matter of days. It was a piece that fully showed the effects of anarchy on members of the human race.

In Lord of the Flies, there was one group of boys at first. But then, the deviant Jack decided that he wanted to run things differently from the vote-appointed Ralph. He breaks off and a lot of those that were once loyal to Ralph and his ideals (which were actually fed to him from an intelligent, social atrocity called "Piggy"), follow suit. That's really as far as the contrast between the two stories goes.

The Free Zone is comparable to Ralph and his followers; Piggy, Sam, and Eric. In each novel Ralph's lot and the Free Zone are considered the 'good side'. The Free Zone embraced every person that came to them and did everything in their power to keep them as safe and happy as they could. Ralph's part of the island would have gladly done the same for anyone that would've wished to be with them in their struggle to get rescued. The Free Zone wasn't a place where people were forced into doing anything they didn't want to do. The committees that were created to get certain types of work done (burying old cadavers, getting the power back on, counting the population) were voluntary. Ralph's lot were all there of their own free will, and anything that had to be done for the sake of their survival/getting rescued (foraging, spying on Jack, and gathering wood for a signal fire) was only done because everyone in the party was 100% behind Ralph and against Jack. In both groups it was considered deviant to leave the group and betray the other followers and/or the leader. When Charlie Impening (the zone 'doom-crier') ran away to Vegas, it was an incident that was thought of as having to be 'dealt with'. You usually don't have to deal with good things. Jack caused the same sort of commotion when he severed himself from the mainstream group.

The opposing teams had some similar values, norms, and deviance concepts. Jack held in high esteem the boys that were most devoted to him, the boys that wanted to have the most fun, and the boys that were easiest to control. Jack and Randy were on the same page. Randy kept his most devout followers close to him and had those farther from his inner circle doing grunt work with the rest of the vulgar citizens. But in all cases for all parties, treason and/or betrayal was a punishable offense. While Ralph and the Free Zone would be the type to simply allow you to walk into your own demise, Jack and Randy would have had to hurt/kill you in some cruel and unusual way. You could say that obedience was something that they valued from their subjects. Although no one ever did try to go back to Ralph's part of the island, Jack most likely wouldn't have reacted any less rashly than Randy did when Whitney spoke out against him towards the end of the book.

Speaking of children and adults, allow me to delve into the reasons that some of the characters from The Stand act the way that they do when they're all grown up in the book. Stu Redman, for starters, grew up with his mother and two other brothers. One of them died just as he began working to help out around the house in the wake of his dead, dentist father's absence. It's notable that later on in the book Stu is unconsciously placed in the leadership position, once he meets up with Glenn, Fran, and Harold. Even when he gets to the Free Zone he's voted as marshal to help take care of the people that are starting to commit crimes and get themselves into what would've been called trouble in the old world. There weren't any real laws yet, just folkways. People would see someone doing something that everyone knew "shouldn't" be done, but since there was no authoritative figure to do anything about it, they didn't make a move to stop it. Now they knew that they needed to find someone to regulate their everyday lives: Stuart Redman. This makes sense since he mentally forced himself into becoming another adult in the house when he was a mere nine years old, working at a truck stop. After one of his brothers and his mother died, he was left to take care of his remaining sibling. This was yet another leadership role, now becoming the sole caretaker of another human being. He didn't necessarily desire the positions that he was put in, but he was raised by a realist, and the facts of the matters were that somebody had to do it and it had to be done. He falls fairly deftly into anything that's put before him, but he's hardly ever happy about it. Though, it has been said that those who hate to be at the front of the crowd make the best leaders. That's Stu in a nutshell. Erikson would argue that Stu is accepting and somewhat submissive as an adult because as a child he had to work (as I've said) and missed out on a lot of interaction with other humans his age. He started working when he was going through his 'competitiveness versus inferiority' phase. If he had been with other children he would've gotten that common impression that he must be aggressive and outgoing even though that's not necessarily who he is within himself. He would've done it just to secure a spot in a group of friends.

Fran Goldsmith had a damn-near perfect life. She had the well-to-do family, lived in the suburbs, was beautiful, and had a caring father. Her mother wasn't much on the parenting business, though. She didn't have her daughter towards the top of her list of priorities. Fran and her mother are opposites and it shows through all their encounters in the story. When your mother would first tell you to get out of a room, rather than figure out why you're there (the reason just happening to be that you were injured) there's definitely something wrong in the relationship. Having the standoffishness from her mother caused Franny to lack a little in her 'love and belongingness' stage of need. According to Abraham Maslow, there is a hierarchy of needs in personal development, each one having to be met before a person can move on to accomplishing another. Physiological needs (rest, food), safety and physical needs (a sturdy home), love and a sense of belonging (usually provided by family), esteem needs (from getting things done and earning respect for accomplishments), and self-actualization (Nirvana; you've done all you can do with yourself). While Fran got love and belongingness from her father, not having her mother feel exactly the same way about her could do nothing but make her life just that much more difficult. Fran's young, but I do believe that she has gotten past that love need due to how much of it she received from her father. Everything about her seems pretty much in check, other than that hole her mother left, and since Maslow says that if you miss a step you'll continue to reproduce it, Fran would be the type of person who would marry someone who doesn't really care about her at all, or doesn't care about her more than some other, material obsession.

Harold Lauder was the disgusting little boy that always had fresh semen in his underwear and a new story idea inside of his thick skull. Harold grew up with Franny. The same sort of lifestyle, other than the fact that his father thought he was gay and his mother almost completely disregarded him, and his Wonder Woman sister couldn't have cared less about him if she hadn't known that he existed. Harold's awkward relationship with his family would turn him into someone who overcompensates for the characteristics that he thinks he's missing and cries out for love and attention somewhat indirectly. When they first met, he would've rather cussed Stu out than just tell him that he was in love with Fran. But Stu, being that 'leader' that he is, forced Harold to calm down and look clearly at what was happening, making a promise to not move in on Fran since Harold was so attached to her. But since Harold missed out on the love and belongingness which means, according to Maslow, that he will keep stumbling over this particular step throughout his life. That's one reason why losing Fran (if he ever really had her) to Stu hurt him so badly. He finally had a chance to move on to the next of his needs as a human being, and Stu took that away from him. He feels betrayed and therefore wants nothing to do with the Free Zone's existence and concentrates his energies on its destruction instead.

The Stand is full of examples of the majority of the things a Sociology teacher would have to explain to their classes. Everybody comes from different backgrounds, which may be part of the reason why some people just don't "get" things that the two-thousand page books they paid for are talking about. Having The Stand available is a way to discuss and interpret the happenings in the story with a fairly neutral playing field. From aberrant behavior to zoning, this is one book that is an absolute must-read alongside a text book.