Everything in Its Place

Teacher key. Do not link to this page from student materials, and do not upload it to a public folder.

Teacher key

Section numbers map to obscured file names, so students cannot step through the story by editing the address. The case now runs to 50 sections: sections 1 to 19 as before, a second round of enquiries (20 to 31), the Wall and the approach to the chapel (32 to 42), then sections 12 and 13 (the chapel and the confession) and the eight endings (43 to 50). Start page: index.html. Recap page: p-c0b78339.html.

Page map

Route notes

• Ending 43, Order Restored: reached from sections 5, 7, 34.
• Ending 44, The Quiet Collar: reached from sections 5, 6, 35.
• Ending 45, The Faithful Servant: reached from sections 13.
• Ending 46, Wrong Pew: reached from sections 12.
• Ending 47, Everything in Its Place: reached from sections 13.
• Ending 48, The Revolution Will Be Minuted: reached from sections 8.
• Ending 49, Equal and Opposite: reached from sections 17.
• Ending 50, Half the Town: reached from sections 13.
• Clue locations: A (2), The Pay Notice; B (12), The Thrift Ledger; C (4), The Seating Plan; D (6), The Harborline Offer; E (8), The Strike Minutes; F (10), The Anchor Register; G (11), The Missed Prayer; H (13), The Back Stair Key; I (14), The Kitchen-Table Books; J (15), The Friday Visit; K (16), The Pay Grades; L (18), The Gate Log; M (19), The Monday Signing; N (21), The Dinner Card; O (22), The Galley Proof; P (23), The Hotel Receipt; Q (24), The Rent Notice; R (25), The Sick Club Book; S (26), The Torn Petition; T (27), The Key Board; U (28), The Rubbed-Out Line; V (29), The Message Slip; W (30), The Fund Book; X (36), The Thrift Day Badge; Y (38), The Uncounted Tin.
• Flag WARD_TRUSTED: set in section 5; recorded for the player's own notebook only (it does not change the route).
• Flag RUDD_TRUSTED: set in section 8; recorded for the player's own notebook only (it does not change the route).
• Flag FEMINIST_HEARD: set in section 17; checked at section 13 together with ACTION_HEARD and CONSENT_SEEN.
• Flag ACTION_HEARD: set in section 24; checked at section 13 together with FEMINIST_HEARD and CONSENT_SEEN.
• Flag CONSENT_SEEN: set in section 31; checked at section 13 together with FEMINIST_HEARD and ACTION_HEARD. All three must be held to unlock the fullest ending (47); otherwise a full account without them ends at 50.
• Decision at section 3, Three Versions of Saltmarsh: If you hold at least six clues, sit down with the whole board and begin the second round of enquiries. (to 20)
• Decision at section 12, The Calling: If you hold clue Y, lay out everything you know. (to 13)
• Decisions at section 13, What the Ledger Said: If you hold all three flags (FEMINIST_HEARD, ACTION_HEARD and CONSENT_SEEN), call Rook with the whole picture: the man, the sale, the Chamber, the minutes, the women's evidence and the town's own habits. (to 47); If you do not hold all three flags, call Rook with the whole picture as you have it. (to 50)
• Decisions at section 20, The Second Round: If you hold clue C, ask Constance Ward about the card on the top table. (to 21); If you hold clue D, call at the Saltmarsh Sentinel print room. (to 22); If you hold clue E, go back to Tom Rudd and ask about Wednesday. (to 23); If you hold clue F, return to the Anchor after closing. (to 24); If you hold clue I, ask Lilian Crane about the account marked H. (to 25); If you hold clue K, go back to Ruth Haddow. (to 26); If you hold clues A and L, ask Sergeant Rook to show you the works key board. (to 27); If you hold clues L and R, go back to Gil Tanner’s hut. (to 28); If you hold clues D and M, press Marcus Lyle at the Harbour Hotel. (to 29); If you hold clue S, find Peggy and Iris on the slipway. (to 30); If you hold clue E, call on the Reverend at the manse on Chapel Hill. (to 31); If you hold at least sixteen clues, spend the evening drawing the case together. (to 32)

Sociology in the new sections

• Sections 21, 33, 34, 39: Functionalist control agents and Althusser's RSAs: Ward's card, the coroner's typed verdict, the Superintendent's need for a name; scapegoating as a restoration of equilibrium.
• Sections 22, 31, 35, 40: ISAs, hegemony and consent: the Sentinel, the Reverend's Romans thirteen, the Chamber's second cheque, the town changing its story in a day.
• Sections 23, 29, 30: Conflict theory and its limits: Rudd keeps Harborline's offer from his committee; Lyle's message slip shows capital losing by the death; the strike fund book is an alibi from the tea rota.
• Sections 24, 28, 37, 38: Action approaches: routines as accomplishments (Vera, Gil, the uncounted tin), labelling ('confused'), Garfinkel and Luhmann; Weber in Penhale's calling.
• Sections 25, 26, 36: Feminisms: the housekeeping budget and the Sick Club (social capital, private sphere), the torn petition (liberal route), Lilian's night on Mill Row (radical feminism and the private sphere).
• Section 27: Parsons' integration and latency in the Thrift Day ritual of the lent key.

Comprehension questions with indicative content

Credit any valid sociological point, developed with evidence from the story.

A. Social order and social control

1. Using Parsons' four functional problems and an example from the case, explain how order is maintained in an institution. [6 marks]

   • Goal maintenance, adaptation, integration and latency, each described.
   • Application: the cannery's jobs, the works and the chapel, Thrift Day and badges for belonging, rules and the constable for deviance (Constance Ward).
   • Organismic analogy; hard and soft control agents.

2. Outline the neo-functionalist (Luhmann) criticism of traditional Functionalism. [4 marks]

   • Society as a fragmented, non-hierarchical network, not a mechanical system with fixed parts.
   • Autopoiesis: self-reproducing and self-maintaining; order always re-established.
   • Link: the snug's nightly routine (Vera) rather than a system imposed from above.

3. Using Althusser, explain how a ruling class maintains order. Refer to Tom Rudd's account. [6 marks]

   • RSAs (police, courts) and ISAs (media, religion, education) as hard and soft control.
   • Base and superstructure; the owner's influence on the Sentinel, bench, Chamber and pulpit.
   • Concessions to keep cooperation (the strike won something).

4. Explain how hegemony adds to the Marxist view of order, using the strikers' attitude to the Sabbath. [6 marks]

   • Gramsci: leadership with the consent of the led; consent has many reasons (Strinati).
   • Cultural and social capital (Bourdieu, Coleman, Cohen and Prusak) as additional bases of class power.
   • The strikers hold the chapel's thrift ethic as their own, which suits Crane.

5. Using Ruth, Peggy and Iris, explain three feminist views on order and control. [8 marks]

   • Liberal: sex discrimination, law reform (Ruth).
   • Marxist: class and capitalism exploit women's market position (Peggy).
   • Radical: patriarchy in the public (strike committee, chapel pews, workplace) and private (home, unpaid domestic labour) spheres (Iris; Lilian Crane's marriage).
   • Interpersonal vs cultural power.

6. Using Garfinkel, definitions of the situation and labelling, explain how order is created 'from the bottom up'. [6 marks]

   • Order as produced and reproduced through daily routines; society as an 'elaborate fiction'.
   • Garfinkel's disruption of routines: Ada on Penhale's stool produces confusion and anger and reveals the missed prayer.
   • Shared definitions and labels: 'Thrift Day' as celebration; the constable's label of 'confused' for Gil.

B. Social change

7. Suggest two differences between Consensus and Conflict approaches to explaining social change. Which theory do you find more persuasive, and why? [10 marks]

   • Consensus: gradual, evolutionary structural differentiation and strain (Parsons, Merton); conflict: class contradictions, strikes and large-scale change.
   • Evaluation using evidence (the sale, the strike, the trust) and critics (economic determinism).
   • Reasoned judgement.

8. Explain Weber's account of the spirit of capitalism and how Penhale illustrates it. [8 marks]

   • Calvinism, predestination and the Elect proving salvation through hard work, thrift and reinvestment.
   • Penhale's ledger: eleven years of reinvested savings as proof of calling.
   • Evaluation: religion as the 'final push' against structural accounts. Optional extension: Robinson's conditions (channels of dissent blocked; the Reverend's Exodus sermon).

9. Explain liberal, Marxist and radical feminist approaches to social change, using the packing line. [6 marks]

   • Liberal: anti-discrimination law (Equal Pay Act 1970, Sex Discrimination Act 1975).
   • Marxist: transform capitalism.
   • Radical: overthrow patriarchal ideas and practices; matriarchy suggested by some.
   • Ending 49 shows liberal change without structural change.

C. Synthesis

10. 'No single theory explains the night on the back stair.' Discuss, using at least three pieces of evidence. [10 marks]

    • Functionalism: Chamber's fever model and scapegoat (ending 43).
    • Conflict: Harborline sale, pay cut, concealment (clues A, D, M).
    • Feminist: pay grades and the kitchen-table books (clues K, I).
    • Action: the chapel calling and the missed prayer (clues B, G, L), the uncounted tin (Y).
    • Judgement on how the explanations fit together.

11. Compare endings 45 (The Faithful Servant) and 47 (Everything in Its Place). [10 marks]

    • Ending 45: action theory without structure; motive explained, conditions untouched.
    • Ending 47: all four perspectives, with evidence, and structural change.
    • Link to Weber and Marx; accountability and sociological imagination.

12. Evaluate whether a class-only or gender-only account is enough, using endings 48, 49 and 50. [8 marks]

    • Ending 48: Marxist account silent on the actor.
    • Ending 49: liberal feminist gains without addressing capital or the killer.
    • Ending 50: workers' ownership leaves women's work undervalued.
    • Dual systems and interlocking arguments.

D. Deepening the case

13. Using Constance Ward's dinner card and the Sentinel's galley proof, explain how repressive and ideological state apparatuses work together to maintain order. [6 marks]

    • Althusser: RSAs (constable, coroner, Superintendent) and ISAs (the press, the Chamber, the chapel); soft control first, hard control after.
    • The dinner card (clue N): a rumour of pickets steers Crane to the back stair; Thomas theorem and Parsons' control agents (latency, integration).
    • The galley (clue O): the 'fall' and the threat set at 6.40, before the police surgeon; Ward telephoned. Eight per cent of the paper owned by Crane: base and superstructure.
    • Evaluation: instrumental Marxism against the press's own commercial logic ('I sell them what they were going to believe').

14. Using Vera Mead, Gil Tanner and the constable's note of 'confused', explain how order is produced and protected from the bottom up through routines, definitions of the situation and labelling. [6 marks]

    • Garfinkel: routines as accomplishments; Vera keeps the rent notice from the snug so the 'scene' holds (clue Q, flag ACTION_HEARD).
    • Luhmann: order is rebuilt after disturbance, but it is rebuilt by people.
    • Labelling: the constable writes 'confused' against Gil, and Gil rubs out Lilian's line to protect a label of 'kind' (clue U); the town's change from 'fall' to 'Rudd' to 'the widow' (section 40).
    • Evaluation: bottom-up accounts can understate power (Ward's card, the Chamber's telephone calls).

15. Using Lilian Crane's housekeeping, the Sick Club book and the tea rota, evaluate Marxist and feminist views of the hidden work that holds order together. [8 marks]

    • Marxist feminism: domestic and reproductive labour sustains the workforce cheaply; radical feminism: patriarchy in the private sphere (Lilian: 'the first night nobody told me what had been decided').
    • Social and cultural capital in women's networks (clue R); the tea rota and Iris and Peggy's alibi (clue W) not counted by the town; the torn petition (clue S) and liberal reform through a tribunal.
    • Rudd's concealment from his committee (clue P): class movements can reproduce hierarchy.
    • Evaluation: dual-systems and interlocking accounts; Ending 50 as the cost of a class-only fix.

16. Using the Reverend's sermon and the strikers' Sabbath, assess the view that religion can both legitimate ruling-class power and drive social change. [8 marks]

    • Marx and Althusser: religion as an ISA; Gramsci: consent is often sincere (flag CONSENT_SEEN); the Reverend ends the sermon on Romans thirteen after Ward's call, and the strikers will not picket on the Sabbath.
    • Weber: the calling and the Protestant ethic as a driver of action (Penhale, clues B, X and Y), and a calling that can kill.
    • Evaluation: religion as a conservative force and as a source of dissent; the 'final push' argument against purely structural accounts.