arts
... optimism about the ability to change human nature by adopting more rational social norms. She discovered this belief, mistakenly, in Samoa. Freeman in contrast, is the representative of the 1950s, having conservative values and believes that human is biologically determined. The main plot of the play centres around Derek Freeman’s crusade against the fallacies in Margaret Mead’s influential 1928 book, Coming to Age in Samoa. Mead had lived in Samoa for eight months and found it to be an idyllic society, free from guilt, jealousy, anger, stress or violence. Her book became a canon to many anthropologists who, Williamson says, "believe that we are totally shaped by our culture and that whatever ideology is pumped into us will entirely shape us". However, one individual anthropologist, Derek Freeman, of whom the title Heretic refers to, challenged the major premises of his own discipline. Freeman established with evidences the fact that Mead has been a victim of a hoax perpetrated on her by two Samoan girls who had indulged in ‘fa’ase’d, recreational lying…a favourite Polynesian pastime’ (Heretic, Act 1, pg. 92). His own experience of living in Samoa for three years g...