Throughout the movie Thelma and Louise, we see an increase in devious actions by what, from the beginning of the movie, seem to be timid women in somewhat normal relationships and lives. By the end of the movie these women become hardened criminals wanted for murder, assault, and robbery. Through the psychological study of behavior we are able to find out more about how and why there was this escalation of deviant action. Thelma and Louise are good friends, and they decide to take a road trip. It all begins without Thelma even telling her husband , because she knows that he will not approve. Thelma was sexually harassed and almost raped at their first stop. , Louise stopped the man by shooting and killing him. From then on these 'women on the run' steal, assault people, and commit more crimes. In Thelma and Louise these women committed the crimes that they did because of Robert K. Merton's Anomie theory. Which states, "Social structures exert a definite pressure upon certain persons in to society to engage in non-conforming rather than conforming conduct" (Goode 40). Which means that if someone in society is put into a pressure situation as these two women were they might snap and start acting in devious ways to get away from this pressure. Thelma and Louise are put into a pressure situation in society and instead of conforming to the normal societal laws they rebel against these laws and turn to devious action.
             The movie starts out as a little road trip to Louise's friends cabin. Merton's theory suggests that these women just needed something to make them snap. When Thelma almost was raped outside the bar the devious behavior began. They thought that they would get in trouble for killing the man that tried to rape Thelma; so they fled. And thus began their run from the law and criminal activity.
             Deviance is defined by sociologists as "any behavior that is regarded as wrongdoing, that ...