In 1938, Robert Merton published “Social Structure and Anomie”. He was the first to move away from the Chicago School of Theory, which believed that the lower class fostered deviance and that rejection of middle-class values ​​led to higher crime rates. Merton, for his part, believed that the American values ​​instilled in everyone were at the origin of crime. Essentially, what he is trying to get across is that our values ​​and our goals of economic success can lead to very serious crimes. Merton believed it was the amount of effort we put into pursuing the “American Dream.” He believed that if a person worked hard enough and educated themselves, they could legitimately achieve this goal. It is individuals considered to have a low socio-economic status who have more difficulty achieving these objectives. This is due to their means of achieving the goal. A person from a low economic status should try harder to achieve the same goals as a person from the middle class. This could lead lower-class individuals to attempt to achieve economic success through illegitimate means. For Merton, the objectives are equally accessible to all, while the means are not, as we have just shown. Merton said that anomie is the weakening of cultural norms that he inherited from Durkheim. Technically, this means that a person will lose their societal norms to achieve their goals. This once again leads to illegitimate forms of achieving this objective. The person will no longer see the difference between good and bad, because the overall goal has blinded him. In Merton's theory, there are five modes of adaptation. Not all of these modes lead to crime or deviant behavior. It is the route that the person chooses to take to deal with the tension that will lead the... middle of paper ...... rhymes, some of us every day simply by speeding. Even if we conform to this mode of adaptation, we are no better than any other. Frank's mother, Paula, only wanted economic success without ever doing anything "wrong." She married a man who gave her wealth, and when he started to fail, she started cheating. Here where it leaves its mode of conformism and shifts towards adaptation if innovation. She does this and finds herself marrying another rich man so that she can live a lavish life again. Frank was influenced by living the American dream through the lavish lifestyle his father led and his mother was truly the spokesperson. Moving her from France, during World War II, to find a way to have a better life. The life he grew up in was a perfect story of what the American dream is. Growing up with money and being able to attend private school as a youth. Franks