In “The Perils of Obedience,” Stanley Milgram uses a progression of subject-experimenter dialogue to represent his changing notion of the human condition throughout the experiment. In his 1974 piece written for Harper’s Magazine, Milgram describes his revolutionary experiment that provided insight into the conflict between conscience and obedience, highlighting the disturbing ease which people transfer responsibility of their own actions to an authority figure. In the experiment, the experimenter instructs the subject to administer shocks of increasing severity to the learner behind the wall for each incorrect answer in a memory task. Milgram includes dialogues between the experimenter and subjects, painting the internal discord between morality and obedience like the script to a dramatic play. Against their initial…show more content… Both the audience and Milgram soon realize that cases like Brandt’s are the exception rather than the norm. The evolution of obedience is next exemplified as Fred Prozi, “a rather ordinary fellow” who is described as nervous, agitated, and in obvious discomfort yet unable to muster up the confidence to disobey the experimenter. From his speech, Prozi word choice and grammar implies that he is less educated; perhaps a blue collar worker who has lived his entire life afraid to take a stand against an authority figure. While Brandt’s morality was more based on ethical principles, Prozi’s more regressive morality was centered on law and order; his obedience was out of fear of retribution from authority. The final dialogue, featuring Mr. Braverman,
