What makes a perfectly reasonable person obediently follow the command to harm someone who has done him no harm? Why would anyone follow orders to mix Kool-Aid with cyanide and extinguish the lives of over 1,000 faithful men, women and children? Or torture and degrade prisoners without provocation? Why would anyone follow instructions to administer electric shocks of increasing strength as punishment for failing a simple memory test? Although these scenarios may resemble the most recent video games in which one assumes the persona of another, people can and do commit violent acts like these in the name of obedience. Zimbardo, Milgram and Orwell show that obedience is a response to the role one assumes in life; to find personal satisfaction and inner peace, one must demonstrate obedience. As the infamous Stanford prison study shows, the conviction with which people embrace their roles, as well as the extreme behavior they are willing to engage in to perpetuate their roles and demonstrate their obedience to perceived authority, has astounded even the study's designer, Phillip Zimbardo. In this study, male college students volunteered to participate in an experiment in which one group was randomly assigned the role of prisoner and the other that of guard. With little instruction and little behavioral guidance provided on how to fulfill assigned roles, each individual responded with behavior observed to be appropriate to their position; prisoners rebelled against authority and guards fought back with force. In just a few days, the prisoners decided to obediently follow the rules set by the guards and expect punishment if they did not follow them. One of the prisoners reported that “…when I saw that the revolt was not working…… middle of paper……he shocked the learner for failing in his task. For participants in the Stanford Prison Study, peace was found in obediently fulfilling their assigned roles, whether prisoner or guard. For Winston Smith, peace came where there is no darkness, obediently and wholeheartedly professing his love for Big Brother. Works Cited Milgram, Stanley. “The Perils of Obedience.” Writing and reading throughout the program. 358-70. Orwell, George. 1984, Signet Classics, New York, New York, 1950. Troyka, Lynn Quitman. Simon & Schuster Handbook for Writers. 7th ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, Inc., 2002 Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum. 7th ed. Ed. Laurence Behrens and Leonard J. Rosen. New York: Longman, 2003. Zimbardo, Philip G. “The Stanford Prison Experiment.” Writing and reading throughout the program. 389-400.